Great! ... just a question: am I the only guy that see the new prime notation upside down? I read <i> as "give me the row" and the other as a column extractor.
Great! ... just a question: am I the only guy that see the new prime notation upside down? I read <i> as "give me the row" and the other as a column extractor.
If we were starting from nothing maybe, but we are not. If the row operator is what used to the column operator then that will be really confusing. Imagine you are workng in both MC15 and in Prime. When you switch back and forth the same operator would get rows in one case and columns in the other.
Yes, you're right, can't abandom years of this notation. But the introduction of this new one is visually confusing to me. Also I feel the notation in the matlab style as more powerfull and flexible than any other that I can figure.
Regards. Alvaro.
PD: 'end' can be implemented as a reserve word meaning something like "last(the first row of matrix above me) if I at first argument, or the first column if I appear in the second place of the subscript)".
Converting one to the other when reading the file isn't the problem. The problem is for the user (especially the ocassional user) to switch back and forth mentally.
There comes a time in every project when it requires burning of all your bridges in order to move forward. backwards compatibility hinders that progress.
MP is that project. i my opinion.
It should be started from scratch. implement all the good things learned during years of Mathcad development and dump all the blunders. This is the right time to re-evaluate everything, and make changes for the better. What PTC does now will stay with it for years, untill another major overhaul is due.
So i say if the syntax needs to be changed this is the time to do it. Convey to your customers that MP is a different beast. not a pretty face to your M15.
If we were starting from nothing maybe, but we are not. If the row operator is what used to the column operator then that will be really confusing. Imagine you are workng in both MC15 and in Prime. When you switch back and forth the same operator would get rows in one case and columns in the other.
Totally understand, but with Prime moving to a whole new format it would have been a good chance to implement such changes with minimal hassle.
This is not going to be a quick transition though. with Prime simply replacing Mathcad 15. The first (and probably the second) version of Mathcad Prime will not be able to do a lot of the things Mathcad 15 can do, so the versions will co-exist for years. Having conflicting notation would confuse the heck out of people. Also, and much worse, what about when a Mathcad document is printed, say to a pdf? Then if the notation was changed it would be impossible to know whether it was a column or row operator unless you knew which version of Mathcad produced the pdf.
It's not even that clear cut to me that the notation would be better if it were reversed. If you assume that the brackets represent arrows it looks the wrong way round, but if you just look at them as brackets then the row operator is more horizontal, and the column operator is more vertical, just as you would expect.
IMHO, the amount of confusion that would result far outweighs any minor benefit.that might result from switching them.
Having conflicting notation would confuse the heck out of people. Also, and much worse, what about when a Mathcad document is printed, say to a pdf? Then if the notation was changed it would be impossible to know whether it was a column or row operator unless you knew which version of Mathcad produced the pdf.
Good point Richard (nail on the hed comes to mind).
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