Range Variable operator?

[StuartBruff]

Pressing ',' in Spirit puts a place holder for a range definition of the form x,y..z in place.

How is this going work when programming is introduced and the user wants to create a sequence in a for loop?

eg, for x ε 0,1,5,9
or for x ε 1,3,(7,9..13),18

[SteenGroðe]

On 8/14/2009 8:06:12 PM, stuartafbruff wrote:
>Pressing ',' in Spirit puts a
>place holder for a range
>definition of the form x,y..z
>in place.
>
>How is this going work when
>programming is introduced and
>the user wants to create a
>sequence in a for loop?

I am still not able to run the beast but this sounds very problematic in another sense: How are Mathcad Prime going to cope with decimal notation when the decimal separator is a comma? There is two standards on decimals and comma is by far the most common in the world.


Steen Gro�e

[StuartBruff]

On 8/15/2009 4:03:16 AM, sgrode wrote:
== There is two standards on decimals and comma is by far the most common in the world.

I believe there are plans to reduce the number of official standards in this respect 🙂

Stuart

[RadovanOmorjan]

On 8/15/2009 4:03:16 AM, sgrode wrote:
>I am still not able to run the beast but
>this sounds very problematic in another
>sense: How are Mathcad Prime going to
>cope with decimal notation when the
>decimal separator is a comma? There is
>two standards on decimals and comma is
>by far the most common in the world.
>
>
>Steen Gro�e
I agree with you and we know that Mathcad from its beginning did not ever mind about diferent decimal separators (point or comma). I think that Prime will continue that way. Also, I do not believe either that something just as simple as in Excel (depending od Reginal settings you use point or comma) will ever work in Mathcad, although I would realy like to.

Regards,
Radovan

[RichardJ]

On 8/15/2009 4:03:16 AM, sgrode wrote:

>I am still not able to run the beast but
>this sounds very problematic in another
>sense: How are Mathcad Prime going to
>cope with decimal notation when the
>decimal separator is a comma? There is
>two standards on decimals and comma is
>by far the most common in the world.

I think we've discussed this before, but I disagree that comma is "by far the most common". See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DecimalSeparator.png

Without adding up country populations, I would say it's either approximately an even split or possibly biased to dot (because of the large populations of China and India).

Richard

P.S. for any that are wondering, I've been traveling, and now have problems downloading the beta, hence the lack of posts. Hopefully I'll get it installed today.

[StuartBruff]

On 8/18/2009 9:45:13 AM, rijackson wrote:
>I think we've discussed this before, but
>I disagree that comma is "by far the
>most common". See:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Decima
>lSeparator.png
>
>Without adding up country populations, I
>would say it's either approximately an
>even split or possibly biased to dot
>(because of the large populations of
>China and India).

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/techbeat/tb2006_1122.htm#decimal

[SteenGroðe]

Never mind whatever - I hope we can agree upon that Prime has to handle both.

Steen Gro�e

[RichardJ]

On 8/18/2009 12:35:00 PM, sgrode wrote:
>Never mind whatever - I hope
>we can agree upon that Prime
>has to handle both.

It would certainly be preferable, yes. That would not be without it's drawbacks though. The comma is a standard way of delimiting elements in a list, and using it as a decimal separator is not compatible with that (I know what 1.1,2.2,3.3 means, but what does 1,1,2,2,3,3 mean?).

Richard

[TomGutman]

Windows has a standard way of dealing with that. When the comma is used as a decimal separater the semicolon is used as the list separator. Since Mathcad does not use the semicolon for any purpost (the semicolon key is a somewhat different matter) that would not be a problem.

Another, not as neat, solution is the COBOL style solution. Punctation is always followed by a space, so a list delimiter is ", ". A decimal separator is then not allowed to be trailing, and so is always followed by a number. A list of numbers might therefore look like "1,1, 2,2, 3,3" and is quite unambiguous. I don't really care for this approach, and it leads to some issues with how to enter this, but it is a solution, and one that is workable and in use.
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� � � � Tom Gutman