Well, I have been using Mathcad since V1. I recall the thrill when I began using it. There was nothing like it at all on the market, so even though it did so much less than, say, V14, it did things for years that no one else did. I think that there are several products now vying for the same slot on the market. I don't think of M' as a step backward; I see it as a step sideways. It can't be a step backward for me, because it in no wise replaces, or attempts to replace, M14. Perhaps in the future it will be a reasonable replacement. When the day comes that PTC no longer supports M15+, and I must decide to use M' or switch to another product, then I will see if it is a step backward or not. I think that I understand the market decisions that PTC is making now.
One of them is the ribbon. Years ago, I was involved as a consultant with a very large company in the area of using their math tool efficiently. It was a very extensive effort, and resulted, I believe, in the product incorporating the best that professional users had to offer. I also was an early adopter of MS Office when it first hit the streets, because I believed that it would make a huge impact on the business community and be widely adopted (even though I didn't believe that it was the best product on the street those days). A few years ago, I upgraded to 2007, thinking that I wanted to be current. After struggling with the product for months, I gave it up and went back to 2003. I don't know of ANY professionals who like the ribbon, though I suppose that they exist. For any company to emulate another company's mistake for perceived market share shows a lack of real corporate character. If PTC really thought that they had a good product for the market, they would set the pace themselves rather than copy a sad UI such as the ribbon. Even so, providing for dual UIs would go a long way to keeping both sides happy. I have impressed many looking over my shoulder with the speed with which I can produce Mathcad worksheets and models, and I can tell you that I am far from using most of the power the M1x supplies. Can I do the same with M'? I cannot. I hesitate to even display it to my associates. (In fact, for some reason, though I have M15 licensed on this machine, M' will not run. I'm working w PTC to resolve that.)
I run a small software engineering company (have for the past 20 years). I recall going head-to-head with dome VPs over design issues when they wanted my company to do something foolish (like the ribbon). I simply will not allow my company name to be associated with a product that I know is defective in this manner. Some of the products have been in the field for 15 years, including upgrades and enhancements, and one of them has withstood several attempts by other companies to produce a competing product. They have failed. The feedback that I get from the field by companies who have compared our products with competing products is that our product is by far more usable than those produced by potential competitors: it is easier to use and faster in execution. The point of this paragraph is NOT to get more clients; it is to explain why I feel the way I do. My opinions are based on decades of experience in designing user interfaces and focusing on user efficiency. The ribbon may be cute and new, but THAT, folks is the real step backward for M', not just that it has not matured to the point where it will replace M15.
Ditto the new licensing scheme that is nothing but heartache for me. I still run M14 on most of my machines because I don't want to spend the cost of the labor to troubleshoot the licensing problems. I own several other development tools that cost $2-4K USD, and they have trivial license requirements by comparison.
Oh, and did I forget speed? Did PTC really think that folks with work to do will not notice the huge slowdown in performance? Maybe they are counting on all of us having the latest 16-core machines running @ 10GHz. I recall a company that we consulted with in the past that would not upgrade its developers' machines because they figured that if the developers thought the product was painfully slow they might be encouraged to find ways to improve it.
I intend to continue to work w M' as time and licensing restrictions permit because I don't want "upgrade shock" when PTC thinks that M' ready to replace M15. In the meanwhile, I'll stick w M14/15 for my work, and keep an eye on the competition. Maybe, as one of our Russian friends seems to have said, the replacement will come from someplace else. US companies used to have the every ethic that I think I saw in his post, but now not so much.
In the meanwhile, I appreciate just having had Mathcad for the past few decades and having it now. It's still the tool that I reach for most of the time, though I have the latest Maple and MATLAB programs installed and running.
~R~
