Hi Max,
I love Mathcad, but I also can appreciate some of your frustration. I think it is possible that you may have been introduced to Mathcad in a "non ideal" manner.
I, like most users I suspect, learned Mathcad "on my own"...no courses, no training, and I didn't go very frequently to the "help desk" of the original company. The key I think was that I started slowly, learning the interface with small, algebraic problems. I was not in school, but I was working in my career. I purchased my first copy on my own, but when it became obvious that it was one of my major tools at work, I was able to get my company to purchase updates. Upon retirement, I have been paying again for my updates.
Back to the learning process, I found the tutorials and help manual to be the main way to learn new features. I am sometimes amazed at the requests for help that show up on this site when just a close examination of those resources would show the user how to do the task.
In your discussion, you had some specific complaints that can be easily fixed. First, you mentioned that you can't input code while Mathcad is computing and there was no interrupt. There is..just click Esc. Sometimes it takes awhile, but it does stop the calculation. An even better approach is to turn off the automatic calculation feature. I don't have MC 14, but in MC 15 it can be turned off by "tools>calculate" on the toolbar.
I may be wrong, but you may have been exposed to advanced capabilites in an advanced course too early in the learning process. And there may have been a time pressure to get something done too fast. I had the same problem when I was exposed to a hybrid analog/digital computer. I had used digital computers but not analog. The professor said, do this, this, then this, and this. and that's all there is too it. Then he left the room. I never did get an analog problem solved. Fortunately, we could use just the digital computer for the course if we wanted. In your case, you may never use Mathcad again, but I hope you do give it another try.
I would like to see Mathcad introduced first in the computer lab course, or even better, in the department's AIChE Student Chapter. Often, those chapters have the upperclass students tutor or lead workshops for the underclass students. This would be a non credit, low pressure way to learn the tool that would then be used in later courses.
Finally, you are right about the error messages not being very informative. But at least they show an error. Many of the errors that they show, and prevent further calculation, would not even be caught in other programs. They would just go on merrily calculating and getting a garbage answer.
I have to agree with other comments, Prime is not a complete tool yet, but it may be what you need to learn. By being limited, it may slow down the learning process. However, there is the danger that you learn it and then find that you can't do something that you need, but it could be done in Mathcad 15. I don't remember MC 14 being that bad, but it may have had some bugs, like most big programs.
I hope you follow Alan's recommendations and follow what's going on in the Chemical Engineering space on this site. It might encourage you to give Mathcad another try. My worksheets are posted in Mathcad 15 build M005. If you can't read them, let us know by posting a reply here or starting another discussion in the ChE space. I could attach a .pdf version of the worksheet that you could read. My hope is that by showing some good ChE examples, people like you will be encouraged to try the program.
Thanks for telling your experience. Sorry it was not good, but your comments may help improve the product or the training and university marketing program. I'm not a PTC employee, just someone that wants to see Mathcad succeed because I think it's good for my consulting business, and I hate to see others using what I regard as inferior tools.
