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dnims3-Newcomer
3-Newcomer
July 26, 2021
Question

Backward Compatibilty

  • July 26, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 2516 views

Have been using Matlab and Mathcad since the 80's.

 

If I pull up a bit of 1980's Matlab code and try to run it, Matlab identifies the obsolete entries, I tweak them and it runs in a few minutes.

 

Mathcad has no backward compatibility.  As an instructor, it is unusable for class.  Users of different versions can't share files.  University has a license,  I have a license.  Students down load a trial version. Different versions. It is miserable.  It hurts my street cred with students that I use it.

 

I tell the students that since at least 2008 Mathcad has made using the software a hardship.  

 

The best I have seen in put is that buying "prime is like buying the tail to get the dog".  PTC's solution is to kill the dog?

 

Duly noted that this has been remarked on for decades and usually more articulately than I have done here.  Just reminding PTC this is an acute pain point.

    2 replies

    W
    Werner_E25-Diamond I
    25-Diamond I
    July 27, 2021

    Mathcad could be a perfectly suitable software for education due to the low training effort. But I fully agree that in view of PTC's "further development" Mathcad-Prime can't be recommended for educational use and no prospective engineer should be exposed to it.

     

    The best I have seen in put is that buying "prime is like buying the tail to get the dog". 

    I think it was Fred who first used the phrase "Buy the tail and get the dog for free"  here in the forum when talking about the incapable Prime.

     

     

    PTC's solution is to kill the dog?

    That seems to be the plan in order to avoid having to continue to pay license fees to Mathworks for the usage of that old version of muPad for symbolic calculations. From that point of view "killing the dog" IS a solution - for PTC, not for their customers, of course.
    It is sad to see how a software with an ingenious approach is hit against the wall. Is it incompetence, or ignorance, or ... ???

     

    Just reminding PTC this is an acute pain point.

    You don't really think PTC cares, do you?

    S
    StuartBruff23-Emerald V
    23-Emerald V
    July 27, 2021
    @Werner_E wrote:

    Mathcad could be a perfectly suitable software for education due to the low training effort. But I fully agree that in view of PTC's "further development" Mathcad-Prime can't be recommended for educational use and no prospective engineer should be exposed to it

    I agree with Terry here.   The academic prices are reasonable and even at Prime 7 capability, I think Mathcad is still good enough for people to use ... well, civil engineering types anyway, far less so if you like doing image processing - the lack of a Picture Operator makes Mathcad a no-go except for masochists and people who like barking at passers-by whilst the dog lounges on the sofa.

     

    I think it was Fred who first used the phrase "Buy the tail and get the dog for free"  here in the forum when talking about the incapable Prime.

     

    PTC's solution is to kill the dog?

    That seems to be the plan ... 

    Not quite, I think.  I'm not sure what PTC's actual plan was/is, but many of us were hoping they'd change the original Mathcad Springer Spaniel into a Border Collie or German Shorthaired Pointer.   What we seem to have is a Shih Tzu.  I'm hoping, from the road map, that the breeders will get back on track to giving us a Proper dog.

     

    One thing that seems to have been lost in the demands to get a Mathcad 15 replacement is that there were some significant problems with Mathcad 15 that *should* have been addressed in the maths engine updates, particularly in the way that arrays are handled.   The M15 method, good as it was for its early incarnations, lacked such things as true multidimensionality (it's not hard to implement and there are plenty of good libraries out in the wild) and, I find this a real pain, an empty element.   M15 could also do with some inbuilt set operators.   I have a list if PTC are not interested, which I have presented очень много раз before.  It includes such things as getting back to the original whiteboard concept rather than the page-oriented document concept that PTC have implemented.

     

    That seems to be the plan in order to avoid having to continue to pay license fees to Mathworks for the usage of that old version of muPad for symbolic calculations. From that point of view "killing the dog" IS a solution - for PTC, not for their customers, of course.
    It is sad to see how a software with an ingenious approach is hit against the wall. Is it incompetence, or ignorance, or ... ???

    🤢I don't have a problem with finding an alternative symbolic engine to avoid paying licence fees to a direct competitor in the maths application field ... they did it to get around the limitations of the Maple engine ( there were also some people who were skirting around licensing issues by using undocumented commands ... I'm sure I'd never have done such a thing. 😇  ... 😈).  What I'd have like to have seen (and did suggest) was a tie-in with a calculator manufacturer, eg Texas Instruments or HP.

     

    Just reminding PTC this is an acute pain point.

    You don't really think PTC cares, do you?

    Surprisingly, I have seen some indications that PTC does care a little bit.  The road map appears to be heading in the right direction, even if the man with the red flag is taking his time.   As they do seem to care a little bit, perhaps I could take this opportunity to ask them to address a couple of outstanding problems?

     

    -- fix local function recursion!!!  It is broken!

    -- restore partial function application.  It is a right royal pain in the brain not being able to do proper functional programming.  

     

    oh, and, add mutual recursion whilst addressing these aspects?

     

    Please, please, please, PTC, instead of listening to people who complain at the first sign of something they're not used to, either educate them or provide a "training wheels" option and leave nice features alone for those of us who can make effective use of them.  I have seen this "crippling to the lowest denominator" effect several times, including in Real Mathcad, and any gains never really offset the removal/curbing of a feature.   And I do hope nobody even dares to mention that such changes might break existing worksheets or require modifications ... I remember this kind of statement being made in the lead up to Mathcad 12 (and other versions) and good stuff being consequently left out - and then Mathcad 12 breaking *far* more frequently-used things, anyway.  I'm not even going to mention Prime 1.0, because I don't want to get sued for causing mental distress. 

     

    Cheers,

     

    Stuart

    T
    21-Topaz II
    terryhendicott21-Topaz II
    21-Topaz II
    July 27, 2021

     

    Hi

    https://www.ptc.com/en/blogs/cad/free-downloads-for-students-part-2-ptc-academic-licensing-explained

    It is possible for students and instructors to buy the latest Prime premium version at academic pricing (according to the web page above).

    I cannot find in my searching anywhere that the academic price is listed so cannot compare the cost to a textbook.

    Treat it like a textbook purchase for the students.

    All would be on the latest and full versions.  Like textbooks they should be free to the instructors.  Hint PTC. 

    I too lament the ending of real Mathcad but PTC are calling the shots.

    Prime has a converter for older MathCad files.

    Cheers

    Terry

    S
    StuartBruff23-Emerald V
    23-Emerald V
    July 27, 2021
    @terryhendicott wrote:

    https://www.ptc.com/en/blogs/cad/free-downloads-for-students-part-2-ptc-academic-licensing-explained

    It is possible for students and instructors to buy the latest Prime premium version at academic pricing (according to the web page above).

    I cannot find in my searching anywhere that the academic price is listed so cannot compare the cost to a textbook.

    Treat it like a textbook purchase for the students.

    All would be on the latest and full versions.  Like textbooks they should be free to the instructors.  Hint PTC. 

    For the UK at least, the academic pricing is £44.64 for a student licence and £250.80 for a "professor" (prices include VAT (value added tax)).  https://www.mathcad.uk

     

    The personal licence is £544.80 per annum, which is, to put it mildly, non-competitive.  A professor's price might be worth it, but the other Big M maths providers (Mathematica, Maple and Matlab) all provide much lower, one-off purchase options for their latest versions.  I have sometimes wondered if one of them has got a saboteur at work in PTC's sales department ...

     

    And, I can run Maple and Mathematica on my iMac (and macBook).   Indeed, the only reason I have a Windows PC is running Mathcad.  For everything else I do there is macOS (or a Linux variant running on a Beagle Black Wireless or a Raspberry Pi (which has a free version of Mathematica!)).

     

    I too lament the ending of real Mathcad but PTC are calling the shots.

    Looking at the Master Plan, some sort of parity with Real Mathcad (be that v7, v11, or v15), it looks like PTC have got Prime 11 in mind.   Given that many of my files make use of the Picture Operator (for visualising both images and matrices-as-patterns), I have no compelling reason to upgrade from Mathcad Express before that.   It's a nuisance at times, but I can get round the lack of programming by using if to do strict functional programming and I turn to something else for symbolics.  I do, however, find Mathcad the most convenient application to use for playing around with and the one that imposes the least cognitive load (partly through familiarity and partly because it's what it is ... although, Maple Flow looks like it could be a contender in a few releases time).

     

    https://community.ptc.com/t5/PTC-Mathcad/PTC-Mathcad-Prime-Roadmap-2021-update/td-p/738684

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