Re: Mathcad Prime 3.1 - Page 3

VladimirN · ‎Jul 04, 2014

In the PTC product calendar (http://www.ptc.com/cs/product_calendar/PTC_Product_Calendar.htm#RANGE!A474) will be prompted to Mathcad Prime 3.1 F000. Has anyone heard anything about this?

VladimirN · ‎Aug 08, 2014

It seems that Prime 3.1 version is the same as the analogue of MS Windows 8.1 (by the way, probably Prime 3.1 will work correctly in Windows 8.1).

MikeArmstrong · ‎Aug 08, 2014

I suppose that is good news for Prime users, but is Prime 3.1 going to be a a free upgrade?

RichardJ · ‎Aug 08, 2014

It will probably be a "free" upgrade if you are currently paying for maintenance

MikeArmstrong · ‎Aug 08, 2014

- that counts me out then.....

Fred_Kohlhepp · ‎Aug 08, 2014

Richard Jackson wrote:
No, I believe they do intend to do that, if only because it's the only way to get everyone to shut up about it.

There is another way to silence critics; I haven't heard any complaintsfrom Tom Gutman or Jean in quite a while

MikeArmstrong · ‎Aug 08, 2014

Fred Kohlhepp wrote:
Richard Jackson wrote:
No, I believe they do intend to do that, if only because it's the only way to get everyone to shut up about it.
There is another way to silence critics; I haven't heard any complaintsfrom Tom Gutman or Jean in quite a while

I believe Jean was removed from the forum for his abusive attitude towards forum members, not just his criticism of PTC.

I have no idea why Tom stopped contributing though.

Fred_Kohlhepp · ‎Aug 08, 2014

Mr Gutman, if I recall, became disenchanted with the conversion of the collaboratory into this forum (or its predecessor.

MikeArmstrong · ‎Aug 08, 2014

That rings a bell. Such a shame that he does not contribute anymore. I would have loved to get his take on the future of Mathcad.

VladimirN · ‎Aug 06, 2014

Hi Andy,

PTC tell the preliminary release date of Mathcad Prime 3.1 release?

AndyHermanson · ‎Aug 06, 2014

They didnt at the time (middle of June) other then probably calendar Q4.

MikeArmstrong · ‎Aug 07, 2014

Andy Hermanson wrote:
They didnt at the time (middle of June) other then probably calendar Q4.

But what about Prime 4........

MarkBuckton · ‎Aug 08, 2014

Mike;

I am not letting the "cat out of the bag" but if you could imagine a scenario whereby a company knowingly emulates the engineering ineptitude that leads to a catastrophe on the same order of magnitude as the Fukushima and Chornobyl disasters combined, then you will get some idea of what PTC is about to reveal about Mathcad Prime 4.

MikeArmstrong · ‎Aug 08, 2014

Hahahahah - be concerned then!!!!!!

syaacoby · ‎Sep 18, 2014

What remains interesting in MP series ??? Only a matter of the names 3.1 or 4.0 ...

It will be the same crap anyway

Very sad indeed - SHEMY.

MikeArmstrong · ‎Sep 24, 2014

We are still waiting to hear PTC's intention wioth the next release of Prime. What has been muted is that they will relase Prime 3.1 with additional Prime - Creo functionality, which is of no use for the majopirty of Mathcad users. I have not seen the new revised relase date for Prime 4.0

jiCavers · ‎Sep 25, 2014

Many in this forum have speculated that PTC have in mind a different product positioning for Prime than for MC15, and have no intention of reproducing all the capabilities of MC15. If that divergence really is the case, then they should KEEP MC15 GOING, since they could continue to sell it, even without Prime, to scientific, mathematical and advanced technology users. They would have to keep its current functions intact in the face of evolving Windows over the coming years, but that's a relatively small effort. Probably few or no new features for MC15, though, since a recent PTC posting suggested that it has become a old, creaky platform.

MikeArmstrong · ‎Sep 26, 2014

Jim Cavers wrote:
Many in this forum have speculated that PTC have in mind a different product positioning for Prime than for MC15, and have no intention of reproducing all the capabilities of MC15. If that divergence really is the case, then they should KEEP MC15 GOING, since they could continue to sell it, even without Prime, to scientific, mathematical and advanced technology users. They would have to keep its current functions intact in the face of evolving Windows over the coming years, but that's a relatively small effort. Probably few or no new features for MC15, though, since a recent PTC posting suggested that it has become a old, creaky platform.

I don't believe it is PTC's intention to keep M15. AT the moment they have no choice as Prime is missing so many features. They have just confirmed that they will be retiring all support for versions 11-13.

jiCavers · ‎Sep 25, 2014

I have used Mathcad as my primary computational tool for over 25 years, and I installed Prime 3.0 a couple of weeks ago with anticipation, even though I had read comments about it in this forum. But what a huge disappointment!

Prime is rife with poor design, making it awkward and very time-consuming to use. Some things familiar from Mathcad 15 just can't be done, and its graphs alone make one's best work look amateurish. Worse, it is sluggish and very slow to respond to any input, from page up/down to keystrokes in a text box. That unresponsiveness seems fundamental, the sort of problem that will persist into future versions. And it crashes, too.

It has taken me these two weeks to give up on Prime. But not on MC15, of course. Like so many other forum users, I need it to continue. I DON'T want to be forced into Matlab - it is sophisticated and works well, but it is essentially just a programming package.

MikeArmstrong · ‎Sep 26, 2014

Jim Cavers wrote:
I have used Mathcad as my primary computational tool for over 25 years, and I installed Prime 3.0 a couple of weeks ago with anticipation, even though I had read comments about it in this forum. But what a huge disappointment!

Yes Jim it is disappointing. I was very optimistic when Prime was announced, but having seen the lack of development from Prime 1.0 to Prime 3.0, I don't hold much optimism for the future.

Prime is rife with poor design, making it awkward and very time-consuming to use. Some things familiar from Mathcad 15 just can't be done, and its graphs alone make one's best work look amateurish. Worse, it is sluggish and very slow to respond to any input, from page up/down to keystrokes in a text box. That unresponsiveness seems fundamental, the sort of problem that will persist into future versions. And it crashes, too.
It has taken me these two weeks to give up on Prime. But not on MC15, of course. Like so many other forum users, I need it to continue. I DON'T want to be forced into Matlab - it is sophisticated and works well, but it is essentially just a programming package.

Let's hope they improve Prime to a useable level before Mathcad 15 starts to struggle with the later Windows releases.

DenisJaunin · ‎Sep 26, 2014

Hello, Jim,

I'm like you, I use MathCad from version 2 to DOS.

And I had all the next versions I ntil Prime 3.0.

I thought the new versions are much more developed.

Prime is actually slow, despite a high-powered PC.

That's why I took my license Maple, now 18.

Maple I found in a version of MathCad of the time.

Best regards.

Denis.

ValeryOchkov · ‎Sep 26, 2014

I use Mathcad and Maple and no problem.

jiCavers · ‎Sep 26, 2014

Earlier posts in this discussion suggested that new users - ones unfamiliar with Mathcad 15 - would become the support base for Prime. I'm not so sure. Prime's user interface is worse than almost any other Windows program, and new users will quickly realize it. Would they really become continuing users? That makes me question the value of Student Edition and of Mathcad Express. Wouldn't exposing new users to a buggy, slow beta version simply repel them, so they never return?

But perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps new users will be persuaded by the prospect of continuing improvement, version by version. We older users were certainly caught up by a similar narrative in the original Mathcad.

In the meantime, PTC collect our annual support payments as they move Prime ever so slowly toward useability. Oddly, I find that almost all of my questions to the support team involve PTC-generated problems, such as workarounds for Mcad 15 problems in Windows 7 or 8 (bugs that are not fixed or advertised) or license difficulties.

I suppose, if Mcad 15 is really going to be left out to dry at some point, then we should let go of our outrage at what PTC are doing and try to help the development of Prime - because that's all we'll have, ultimately. Unless we have left by then for other computational packages, of course. Perhaps we could provide detailed bug lists or fix-now lists, by category. Is there already a channel for this?

Actually, I expect that fixing bugs is currently a lower priority for PTC than adding the appearance of greater functionality. Maybe they plan a wave of bug fixes at some point in future. If they have any users left.

Jim

Werner_E · ‎Sep 27, 2014

Perhaps we could provide detailed bug lists or fix-now lists, by category. Is there already a channel for this?

Thats also one of the problems with PTC. They don't seem to set great value on getting bug reports. You can provide bug reports as support calls and PTC lets you pay maintainance fee for the privilege to do so. So there seems to be only marginal interest (if at all) in that kind of customer feedback.

MikeArmstrong · ‎Sep 28, 2014

Werner Exinger wrote:
PTC lets you pay maintainance fee for the privilege to do so. So there seems to be only marginal interest (if at all) in that kind of customer feedback.

I still find that astonishing!

RichardJ · ‎Sep 28, 2014

Mike Armstrong wrote:
Werner Exinger wrote:
PTC lets you pay maintainance fee for the privilege to do so. So there seems to be only marginal interest (if at all) in that kind of customer feedback.
I still find that astonishing!

I used to be in a position where I had to deal with a lot of bug reports from customers. The vast majority were due to user error though, so rather than being useful to the company they turned into a support issue. So I guess that's the way PTC treats it. If you have maintenance you can submit your "bug", and someone will get back to you even if it's not actually a bug. What PTC is missing is that they could open up a channel for bug reports where there is no guarantee that someone will get back to you. So if you pay maintenance you get to report bugs via that channel, with a guaranteed response, and if you don't pay then you don't, which is fair enough. But it would certainly be in PTC's best interests if they also opened a channel where someone could just submit a bug report, and PTC could decide to ignore it if it's not a real bug.

MikeArmstrong · ‎Sep 28, 2014

Richard Jackson wrote:
I used to be in a position where I had to deal with a lot of bug reports from customers. The vast majority were due to user error though, so rather than being useful to the company they turned into a support issue. So I guess that's the way PTC treats it. If you have maintenance you can submit your "bug", and someone will get back to you even if it's not actually a bug. What PTC is missing is that they could open up a channel for bug reports where there is no guarantee that someone will get back to you. So if you pay maintenance you get to report bugs via that channel, with a guaranteed response, and if you don't pay then you don't, which is fair enough.

Fair point.

But it would certainly be in PTC's best interests if they also opened a channel where someone could just submit a bug report, and PTC could decide to ignore it if it's not a real bug.

100% agree.

Werner_E · ‎Sep 28, 2014

I used to be in a position where I had to deal with a lot of bug reports from customers. The vast majority were due to user error though,

Definitely true - debugging very often ends up in finding the bug approx. 40cm in front of the screen 😉

so rather than being useful to the company they turned into a support issue. So I guess that's the way PTC treats it. If you have maintenance you can submit your "bug", and someone will get back to you even if it's not actually a bug.

Yes, they treat bug reports as support calls and thats also understandable to a certain point. I myself, when I reported a bug and was sure its a bug by letting it confirm by experiened user here in the forum, usually added, that I don't wanted and needed to be contacted, neither by phone (seemingly PTC support's preferred way) nor by mail. I add that they simply should pass it on to R&D and just inform me, when its fixed in a subsequent relase. Sometime this really worked 😉

What PTC is missing is that they could open up a channel for bug reports where there is no guarantee that someone will get back to you. So if you pay maintenance you get to report bugs via that channel, with a guaranteed response, and if you don't pay then you don't, which is fair enough. But it would certainly be in PTC's best interests if they also opened a channel where someone could just submit a bug report, and PTC could decide to ignore it if it's not a real bug.

100% aggreed on! We used to have a channel in the old collab forum which was (hopefully ?) scanned by Mathsoft employees). But a way to submit bug reports from PTC's main support page in a similar way as support calls would do a good job, too, as long as its open to software owners w/o active maintainance, too.

jiCavers · ‎Oct 01, 2014

"as long as its open to software owners w/o active maintainance, too"

That is important.

So... do you know of a channel through which we can suggest this bug report channel to PTC?

Werner_E · ‎Oct 01, 2014

Jim Cavers wrote:
"as long as its open to software owners w/o active maintainance, too"
That is important.
So... do you know of a channel through which we can suggest this bug report channel to PTC?

Unfortunately I am not aware of any channel where you could go through to leading key PTC employees and get appropriate and satisfactory reactions.

I guess the suggested way for customers with active maintainance is to create a new (Product) Idea here in the Forum, but in the past I did not get the impression that it causes anything and usually you also get no feedback from PTC.

MikeArmstrong · ‎Oct 02, 2014

Jim Cavers wrote:
So... do you know of a channel through which we can suggest this bug report channel to PTC?

I have asked this and will hopefully get a response.