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Re: How to write a "proper" math document

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  Re: How to write a "proper" math document "McHale, Paul" <Paul.McHale@excelitas.com> - 2011-07-05 09:13 +0000
    Re: How to write a "proper" math document AES <siegman@stanford.edu> - 2011-07-06 09:39 +0000
    Re: How to write a "proper" math document AES <siegman@stanford.edu> - 2011-07-06 09:40 +0000
      Re: How to write a "proper" math document Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> - 2011-07-07 11:31 +0000
        Re: How to write a "proper" math document AES <siegman@stanford.edu> - 2011-07-08 08:57 +0000
        Re: How to write a "proper" math document Peltio <peltio@twilight.zone> - 2011-07-08 09:09 +0000
          Re: How to write a "proper" math document Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> - 2011-07-09 11:34 +0000
    Re: How to write a "proper" math document "David Park" <djmpark@comcast.net> - 2011-07-07 11:29 +0000
      Re: How to write a "proper" math document AES <siegman@stanford.edu> - 2011-07-08 08:55 +0000
      Re: How to write a "proper" math document Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> - 2011-07-08 08:58 +0000
        Re: How to write a "proper" math document AES <siegman@stanford.edu> - 2011-07-09 11:32 +0000
        Re: How to write a "proper" math document AES <siegman@stanford.edu> - 2011-07-09 11:32 +0000
        Re: How to write a "proper" math document AES <siegman@stanford.edu> - 2011-07-09 11:44 +0000
      Re: How to write a "proper" math document Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz@mimuw.edu.pl> - 2011-07-12 10:59 +0000
        Re: How to write a "proper" math document Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz@mimuw.edu.pl> - 2011-07-13 07:13 +0000
        Re: How to write a "proper" math document Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> - 2011-07-13 07:17 +0000
        Re: How to write a "proper" math document Murray Eisenberg <murray@math.umass.edu> - 2011-07-14 09:28 +0000
        Re: How to write a "proper" math document Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz@mimuw.edu.pl> - 2011-07-15 01:24 +0000
    Re: How to write a "proper" math document "McHale, Paul" <Paul.McHale@excelitas.com> - 2011-07-07 11:33 +0000
    Re: How to write a "proper" math document "McHale, Paul" <Paul.McHale@excelitas.com> - 2011-07-07 11:38 +0000
      Re: How to write a "proper" math document AES <siegman@stanford.edu> - 2011-07-08 09:02 +0000
      Re: How to write a "proper" math document Armand Tamzarian <mike.honeychurch@gmail.com> - 2011-07-08 09:06 +0000
    Re: How to write a "proper" math document JUN <noeckel@gmail.com> - 2011-07-16 09:43 +0000

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#3482 — Re: How to write a "proper" math document

Looking at Mathematica's admitted origins as an authoring tool for Stephen Wolfram to publish his books, it's stronger points become evident.  It works very well in the individual experiment, document and "publish" mode.  Publish here meaning the document is indistinguishable from a PDF with static data, no interaction.  A book.  I will likely stay in the standard flow of experiment, document and publish.  As we can see from the exchanges of emails, this path is sufficiently difficult to do well.  Stephen just makes it look easy :)

I think there are three levels of sharing (at least).  Static data, dynamic/interactive documents and what would traditionally be called stand alone programs (Java, C#...). 

Interactive documents seem to be a limited by corporate security more than technology.  I.e. If Mathematica were open source/free, this would be closer to a non-issue.  This is not practical.  I am just trying to isolate the underlying issue.  To accomplish dynamic documents, the readers need to be better secured (no keyboard input?), more obvious to the anti-Mathematica crowd (user) and easier to proliferate ($$$).  Since the developer and the user share the same interface, the interface of the reader may want to have features disabled and separate menu items for execution.  I.e. "Run" button in place of CTRL-A, Shift-Enter.

Stand alone programs also require the use of the developer interface.  I can tell from the posts here Mathematica has become a programming environment as well where we complete complex tasks that would have been traditionally implemented in Python, Java or C#.  If we share our notebooks with another Mathematica developers, this is fantastic since other developers already use the same interface.  The question is how do we share such functionality with users?  Without a GUI to separate the "user" from the "developer interface", this task is quite difficult.

To fill the expanding roles, maybe WRI needs to consider alternate interfaces.  Maybe a GUI centric interface for distribution of programs.  This is how Microsoft does .Net.  Instead of WRI readers there could be a WRI runtime engine and an "EXE" that is distributed.

I wonder where WRI derives income from?  My guess would be commercial sales.  If this were 90% of the income, make Mathematica free to all educational institutions.  Maybe research institutions as well.  The further proliferation of Mathematica is likely to drive more commercial sales which could yield a net increase in income (in time).

The more I use Mathematica, the more I don't want to be without it.  I also believe proliferation is a very good thing in the bigger picture.  I would love to write interactive documents or distribute standalone programs.  It just isn't in the immediate cards. 

Paul




Paul McHale  |  Electrical Engineer, Energetics Systems  |  Excelitas Technologies Corp.

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-----Original Message-----
From: dr DanW [mailto:dmaxwarren@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, July 04, 2011 6:44 AM
Subject: Re: How to write a "proper" math document

Pulling back from the meta-issue of literate engineering, this is the second time in as many months the topic of hiding cells for publishing documentation has come up in this forum.  I think I will experiment a little with using cell tags to mark cells for hiding (closing) so switching between the development and publishing layout is just a button click.  If I come up with something I am happy with, I'll post it under a new thread.

Daniel

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#3511

In article <iuukk8$epi$1@smc.vnet.net>,
 "McHale, Paul" <Paul.McHale@excelitas.com> wrote:

> Looking at Mathematica's admitted origins as an authoring tool for Stephen 
> Wolfram to publish his books, it's stronger points become evident.  It works 
> very well in the individual experiment, document and "publish" mode.  Publish 
> here meaning the document is indistinguishable from a PDF with static data, 
> no interaction.  A book.  I will likely stay in the standard flow of 
> experiment, document and publish.  As we can see from the exchanges of 
> emails, this path is sufficiently difficult to do well.  Stephen just makes 
> it look easy :)

With regard to this specific situation of going from notebook to "static 
book", let me quote from the 3rd edition of Heikki Ruskeepaa's masterful 
Mathematica Navigator.  Navigator is of course "a book" -- a superb book 
-- written in Mathematica.

But in Section 3.4 of this book, entitled "Writing Mathematica 
Documents" and following a subsection on "Mathematica as a Writing 
Tool", Ruskeepaa has a subsection which reads as follows:

==========================================
Main and Working Documents

When writing a mathematical document with Mathematica, it may be useful 
to work simultaneously with two documents: a {\it main document} and a 
{\it working document. The main document will grow into the final 
publication, whereas all computations are done in the working document. 
Mathematical results, tables, and graphics are copied from the working 
document into the main document. This division into two documents may be 
needed because the main document may not contain the Mathematica 
commands but only the results. The working document contains all used 
Mathematica commands so that all computations can easily be done again. 

   The working document should include the same sections as are in the 
main document so that you can easily find the computations of a certain 
section. Add into the working document comments about the computations, 
such as any difficulties that may arise; they may be valuable if you 
need to do similar computations at a later time.

   When you have completed the writing project, you will then have the 
main document ready to be printed and the working document that will 
enable you to redo and modify computations as needed.
==========================================

Repeat:  _two_ documents.  And although I can't track down the exact 
quote, I believe that in an earlier edition Ruskeepaa states even more 
explicitly that this approach is how he wrote his book.

In a recent post I've suggested a variation on this two-document 
approach: a Mathematic notebook which contains all the "text" content 
(not necessarily cleanly formatted for publication) and does all the 
computations, and then a post-processor (written in whatever language 
you like) which intelligently converts that notebook into a TeX or LaTeX 
document, which (after minor touchup) produces the book.

I believe there are two great advantages to this approach:

1)  It uses the best tool for each separate task -- and thereby does 
each of them better, more powerfully, AND more easily.

2)  Instead of every individual who uses Mathematica having to struggle 
to learn how to do both the technical computations _and_ the 
publications formatting simultaneously in one tool (and instead of, as a 
result, enormously complicating and messing up the syntax and interface 
to Mathematica, to its substantial detriment), put the hard work of 
writing the post-processor on a few skilled individuals, who know how to 
do that sort of thing.

(In fact, multiple post-processors are likely to emerge and compete in 
this situation -- the best results of meaningful competition.)

In any event, let's note:  Even a Mathematica wizard like Heikki 
Ruskeepaa ended up using a _two_ document approach -- he did NOT 
docomputation and publication, all in one single notebook.

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#3512

In article <iuukk8$epi$1@smc.vnet.net>,
 "McHale, Paul" <Paul.McHale@excelitas.com> wrote:

> Interactive documents seem to be a limited by corporate security more than 
> technology.  I.e. If Mathematica were open source/free, this would be closer 
> to a non-issue.  This is not practical. 

This the second and equally difficult problem with Mathematica.  No 
question whatsoever: Mathematica is a marvelous intellectual 
development. 

But if Mathematica had emerged from, and was continually further 
developed in, an open, academic, competitive environment, with 
publications, technical meetings, peer review, student involvement, and 
all the other advantages that this environment can provide, rather than 
a closed, quite secretive, and commercially driven enterprise, it would 
be even richer than it is today.

Ask yourselves where many of the most important software tools of today 
emerged from? (and whether they are free and open tools, or closed and 
excessively expensive tools?)  Just to cite two of these:

*  Unix:  The essentially open world of the original Bell Labs.

*  TeX and LaTeX:  Donald Knuth and his academic students and disciples.

And then all the immense swarm of freeware, shareware, and low-cost 
software tools that we all enjoy today.

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#3526

On 7/6/2011 2:40 AM, AES wrote:
> In article<iuukk8$epi$1@smc.vnet.net>,
>   "McHale, Paul"<Paul.McHale@excelitas.com>  wrote:
>
>> Interactive documents seem to be a limited by corporate security more than
>> technology.  I.e. If Mathematica were open source/free, this would be closer
>> to a non-issue.  This is not practical.
>
> This the second and equally difficult problem with Mathematica.  No
> question whatsoever: Mathematica is a marvelous intellectual
> development.
>
> But if Mathematica had emerged from,

Its predecessor, SMP, emerged from work done at Caltech by several 
people including SW, based in part on various prior technology.
For various reasons, which I suspect he may have indicated in print, SW 
decided quite the opposite from your assertion that software is best 
produced in an academic environment.

  and was continually further
> developed in, an open, academic, competitive environment, with
> publications, technical meetings, peer review, student involvement, and
> all the other advantages that this environment can provide, rather than
> a closed, quite secretive, and commercially driven enterprise, it would
> be even richer than it is today.

Past experience for the example of a computer algebra system, which is a 
rather more esoteric beast than (say) a text editor or formatter, or 
even an operating system, does not necessarily abide by your guidelines.

Support (e.g. in the US) by the National Science Foundation or perhaps 
some part of the defense establishment, has been key in academic 
research, but it tends to be inadequate in amount and/or duration for
the funding of an essentially interminable project.  Support by 
contributions of users is iffy, to say the least.  See how many moribund 
projects there are on sourceforge etc.
>
> Ask yourselves where many of the most important software tools of today
> emerged from?

Some of the most widely used pieces of software are, of course, 
commercially supported. Some are free but not open source. Think of 
Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Google, Adobe, even (gack) Facebook.

Do you think those apps for your telephone would be written if the 
programmers thought they would not make any money (by sales, 
advertisements, whatever?)  Do you think that the 200 people (or however 
many WRI now claims) could be supported by an academic enterprise? 
(Actually, my guess is that 80% of them work in marketing, sales, 
packaging -- non-technical; so maybe we would need to support fewer 
people in a non-commercial setting. Unlikely unless computer algebra 
became as important as building fusion machines or nuclear weapons.. or 
Bill Gates decides to cure math in addition to polio.)

(and whether they are free and open tools, or closed and
> excessively expensive tools?)  Just to cite two of these:
>
> *  Unix:  The essentially open world of the original Bell Labs.

The original Bell Labs Unix was not free, but sold commercially.  It was 
available to educational institutions free. The distribution of Berkeley 
Unix for the DEC/VAX computer required a paid-up commercial license 
(paid to Bell Labs, not Berkeley) for non-academic installations.

This changed, eventually. Commercial support of free unix is plausible 
because of factors that are probably NOT in play for computer algebra 
systems.

But there are gobs of free and open operating system projects that just 
disappeared from the scene.  My guess is that a pretty good recipe for 
working hard for a few years and having no impact on the world is to 
write an open-source operating system.
>
> *  TeX and LaTeX:  Donald Knuth and his academic students and disciples.

I think that adoption by the AMS was a key.
>
> And then all the immense swarm of freeware, shareware, and low-cost
> software tools that we all enjoy today.

You have a somewhat romanticized view of this swarm. 300,000 iphone 
apps?  How many free computer algebra systems that (apparently) you 
don't use?  Free and low-cost malware?
>
While I agree that Mathematica could be improved, I think it is pretty 
speculative to say that it would be better if  Mathematica were free and 
open source. I'm in favor of paying programmers and mathematicians.  I 
doubt that you get the best results from students who have to deliver 
pizzas in the evenings to pay their rent.

RJF

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#3569

In article <iv45e4$eu9$1@smc.vnet.net>,
 Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> > And then all the immense swarm of freeware, shareware, and low-cost
> > software tools that we all enjoy today.
> 
> You have a somewhat romanticized view of this swarm. 300,000 iphone 
> apps?  How many free computer algebra systems that (apparently) you 
> don't use?  Free and low-cost malware?
> >
> While I agree that Mathematica could be improved, I think it is pretty 
> speculative to say that it would be better if  Mathematica were free and 
> open source. I'm in favor of paying programmers and mathematicians.  I 
> doubt that you get the best results from students who have to deliver 
> pizzas in the evenings to pay their rent.

As just a brief response to this and some of what preceded it:

I'm thinking of more or less serious, general purpose, and reasonably 
low-cost or free software and computational tools, suitable for 
intellectual, scholarly, or artistic pursuits, not iphone tools (which 
I'm not knocking, just not interested in). 
  
My Mac is full of them -- things like BBEdit, Bean, Bento, Bookdog, 
DoubleTake, DragThing, EasyFind, EndNote, Excalibur, Fetch, File Juicer, 
GraphicConverter, Google Earth, and so on down through the rest of the 
alphabet (e.g., Patent Download, PDF Shrink, Print Window, Pronto 
Patent).  BASIC (a university development, if I recall) would once have 
headed that list.

I'm particularly thinking of software tools which would provide some 
limited but still useful combination of computer algebra, numerical 
computation, and graphics -- "Mathematica Light", so to speak.

As for paying programmers and mathematicians, that's one of the things 
that universities have always done and to some extent continue to do, 
along with national labs, national academies in some countries, 
'Stiftungs' like Max Planck, and so on -- not as much as we'd like, of 
course, or as much as we (the US) should do -- and Bell Labs, Xerox 
PARC, and others once upon a time.

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#3596

Richard Fateman wrote

> While I agree that Mathematica could be improved, I think it is pretty
> speculative to say that it would be better if  Mathematica were free and
> open source. I'm in favor of paying programmers and mathematicians.  I
> doubt that you get the best results from students who have to deliver
> pizzas in the evenings to pay their rent.

I can see your point here, but I believe the biggest advantage of free
software (as in free speech) is that everyone who _needs_ an
improvement _for him/herself_ is free, if he or she is able, to develop
and add the code that make an application better or more useful.
It does not take anything away from you: if you are able and willing to
perfectionate the code to suit your own purpose, you are free to do it.
If you have the money to pay someone who can do that for you, you can
let them do it (in this way they could quit that pizza delivering job).

With closed source software you are only free to beg the source owner
to do that for you, possibly for a fee (or the cost of an upgrade). And
if he/she does not feel like doing it, you're stuck. I guess there are
a  'long liver' bugs in Mathematica, too.

Perhaps complex software must reach a critical mass before going open
and free. In this way the original developer can be rewarded for their
skills and dedication during the commercial phase. From the 'now it's
free' point on, the software can benefit from the contributes of the
skilled users. I guess that's what happens when patents expire.

Cheers,
Peltio

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#3604

On 7/8/2011 2:09 AM, Peltio wrote:
> Richard Fateman wrote
>
>> While I agree that Mathematica could be improved, I think it is pretty
>> speculative to say that it would be better if  Mathematica were free and
>> open source. I'm in favor of paying programmers and mathematicians.  I
>> doubt that you get the best results from students who have to deliver
>> pizzas in the evenings to pay their rent.
>
> I can see your point here, but I believe the biggest advantage of free
> software (as in free speech) is that everyone who _needs_ an
> improvement _for him/herself_ is free, if he or she is able, to develop
> and add the code that make an application better or more useful.

With a Gnu license, that person is compelled, if distribution is 
contemplated, to give that improved code away. And continue delivering 
pizza.  A disincentive.

As you say, making a deal with the owner is an alternative which may or 
may not work.   It's essentially socialism vs. capitalism.

There is also nothing special about software here. Why not lobby in 
favor of all intellectual "property" being made free, including music, 
books, newspapers, drug patents, etc.

But this is off topic for this newsgroup.
RJF

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#3523

AES,

The "two document" approach has both feet planted in the past. The first
"document" is really a "programmable super graphical calculator" planted in
the recent past. The second document is a static "text, equations, diagram"
document planted in 3000 year old technology.

It is as if, after the introduction of paper or papyrus media, the mode of
communication was to write drafts on paper but only publish by chiseling in
stone - ignoring the fact that it is much easier to copy and distribute
paper documents.

Similarly the second of the current "two documents" nearly completely throws
away all of the benefits of an active and dynamic mathematical medium. Such
as:
1) Generated knowledge in the form of active tools for using the ideas in
the document.
2) If everything is calculated, then the document has a high level of
self-proofing and high integrity. (Perhaps not perfect, but far better that
documents produced by word processing.) It will be more convincing to the
reader.
3) A reader can quickly verify the calculated results, try variations, or
use the material to extend the results.
4) An active and dynamic medium opens up many new ways to present and
envision concepts and information that are just plain missing in static
media.

AES, I sometimes wonder if you have ever tried to write such a document or
ever read one. You seem to be unaware of the advantages.

The solution is simple. Every technically literate person should have
Mathematica. A price of $295 (for the Home edition) is not unreasonable for
people who might at first be casual users or readers. It would probably be a
good business model if the base was much enlarged. Someone has to pay the
developers and maintainers. But how to get to that point?

One path is to produce a free easily obtainable Mathematica Reader on the
model of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. The reader could read the document,
operate the controls (with maybe some minor restrictions) but not much else.
The idea is that once users could publish in Mathematica they would write
more literate documents. More people would see them and decide they really
wanted to do the same (or use the generated knowledge) and so would buy
regular Mathematica themselves. I despair that WRI will ever make this
approach work. (A free Mathematica PlayerPro would be close but they don't
want to do that.) WRI puts too many restrictions and caveats in their
approaches such that it will never convince people that it will be a general
method of publication. For example, it looks as if all dynamics must be via
the Manipulate statement and one cannot write custom dynamics. I was once
hopeful, but now have doubts that this approach will ever work.

One can, of course, publish technical documents within the Mathematica
community. What is needed here is more good examples of literate documents.
Maybe once these are seen, they will seep by osmosis to the wider community
and win their way.

It is not at all a trivial exercise to use this new medium to best
advantage. There are many ways to go wrong, or to generate "computer junk"
or to include things because we just found out in Mathematica how to do
something and then include it without regard to its appropriateness or
without regard to other techniques. It is difficult at first to even have a
grasp of the techniques that are conducive to clear communication. We need
the same kind of thought given to active and dynamic documents as Edward
Tufte has given to data graphics.

For example, WRI has pushed the Demonstrations Project, even as a means of
publication, and it is quite popular. Nevertheless I can't believe that this
can ever be an acceptable general method of publishing ideas. It is far too
restrictive, being built around a single Manipulate statement and not even
allowing custom dynamics. A single object with a lot of knobs on it may be
very impressive but it is not the same thing as clear communication.
Communicating ideas and concepts will usually require development, multiple
modes of presentation, extended textual discussion. In other words,
something that looks more like a classic technical paper but with active
interaction, dynamics and usable generated knowledge.


David Park
djmpark@comcast.net
http://home.comcast.net/~djmpark/  




From: AES [mailto:siegman@stanford.edu] 


In article <iuukk8$epi$1@smc.vnet.net>,
 "McHale, Paul" <Paul.McHale@excelitas.com> wrote:

> Looking at Mathematica's admitted origins as an authoring tool for Stephen

> Wolfram to publish his books, it's stronger points become evident.  It
works 
> very well in the individual experiment, document and "publish" mode.
Publish 
> here meaning the document is indistinguishable from a PDF with static
data, 
> no interaction.  A book.  I will likely stay in the standard flow of 
> experiment, document and publish.  As we can see from the exchanges of 
> emails, this path is sufficiently difficult to do well.  Stephen just
makes 
> it look easy :)

With regard to this specific situation of going from notebook to "static 
book", let me quote from the 3rd edition of Heikki Ruskeepaa's masterful 
Mathematica Navigator.  Navigator is of course "a book" -- a superb book 
-- written in Mathematica.

But in Section 3.4 of this book, entitled "Writing Mathematica 
Documents" and following a subsection on "Mathematica as a Writing 
Tool", Ruskeepaa has a subsection which reads as follows:

==========================================
Main and Working Documents

When writing a mathematical document with Mathematica, it may be useful 
to work simultaneously with two documents: a {\it main document} and a 
{\it working document. The main document will grow into the final 
publication, whereas all computations are done in the working document. 
Mathematical results, tables, and graphics are copied from the working 
document into the main document. This division into two documents may be 
needed because the main document may not contain the Mathematica 
commands but only the results. The working document contains all used 
Mathematica commands so that all computations can easily be done again. 

   The working document should include the same sections as are in the 
main document so that you can easily find the computations of a certain 
section. Add into the working document comments about the computations, 
such as any difficulties that may arise; they may be valuable if you 
need to do similar computations at a later time.

   When you have completed the writing project, you will then have the 
main document ready to be printed and the working document that will 
enable you to redo and modify computations as needed.
==========================================

Repeat:  _two_ documents.  And although I can't track down the exact 
quote, I believe that in an earlier edition Ruskeepaa states even more 
explicitly that this approach is how he wrote his book.

In a recent post I've suggested a variation on this two-document 
approach: a Mathematic notebook which contains all the "text" content 
(not necessarily cleanly formatted for publication) and does all the 
computations, and then a post-processor (written in whatever language 
you like) which intelligently converts that notebook into a TeX or LaTeX 
document, which (after minor touchup) produces the book.

I believe there are two great advantages to this approach:

1)  It uses the best tool for each separate task -- and thereby does 
each of them better, more powerfully, AND more easily.

2)  Instead of every individual who uses Mathematica having to struggle 
to learn how to do both the technical computations _and_ the 
publications formatting simultaneously in one tool (and instead of, as a 
result, enormously complicating and messing up the syntax and interface 
to Mathematica, to its substantial detriment), put the hard work of 
writing the post-processor on a few skilled individuals, who know how to 
do that sort of thing.

(In fact, multiple post-processors are likely to emerge and compete in 
this situation -- the best results of meaningful competition.)

In any event, let's note:  Even a Mathematica wizard like Heikki 
Ruskeepaa ended up using a _two_ document approach -- he did NOT 
docomputation and publication, all in one single notebook.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#3566

In article <iv45b8$es8$1@smc.vnet.net>,
 "David Park" <djmpark@comcast.net> wrote:

> The "two document" approach has both feet planted in the past. The first
> "document" is really a "programmable super graphical calculator" planted in
> the recent past. The second document is a static "text, equations, diagram"
> document planted in 3000 year old technology.
> 
> . . .  the second of the current "two documents" nearly completely throws
> away all of the benefits of an active and dynamic mathematical medium. Such
> as: . . . 
> 
> AES, I sometimes wonder if you have ever tried to write such a document or
> ever read one. You seem to be unaware of the advantages.

I'll refer you once again to an article I wrote two decades ago (when 
the Mac was just 5 years old, and Mathematica had just appeared):

   <http://spie.org/etop/1991/338_1.pdf>

It's opening sentence reads:

   "As I began preparing the talk on which this article is based its 
   subject matter began to evolve, moving from the original topic 
   of computer display tools for optics education toward the more
   general topic of  personal computers in higher education, 
   especially in science and engineering; and so this article will 
   be directed more broadly to that topic."

I've also voiced on this forum my very high opinion of Manipulate and 
its dynamic capabilities as providing a major and highly valuable 
contribution to these broad objectives.

But I believe there are still multiple methods and needs for the 
creation and the distribution of information and knowledge, including 
dynamic mathematical tools that individuals can use by themselves to 
explore all kinds of knowledge; dynamic tools for group presentations 
(seminars, lectures, dynamic web sites]; and, still very important and 
necessary, printed books, journal articles, manuals, and other 
manuscripts for individual use.

If I'm trying to understand and puzzle out the physical implications of 
some involved mathematical analysis of a physical problem, I very much 
want to have the equations and their derivation, along with other 
reference material, in a printed article or memo or book on the desktop 
beside me -- maybe several such items -- so I can flip through this 
material, or scrawl notes on it, or just stare at the derivations to see 
if some insight will leap out at me, AND at the same time have a dynamic 
mathematical tool available and running on the large monitor in front of 
me.  

Similarly, if I'm trying to program something using a new tool, I need 
to have one or more systematically organized manuals or collections of 
reference material on the desktop beside me, AND at the same time have 
that tool itself running on the large monitor in front of me. 

Trying to carry out all the activities involved in either of these two 
situations using only a monitor and no printed materials, so that one is 
continuously jumping back and forth and navigating between the active 
computation and the reference materials, all on a single screen (even a 
large one) is an exercise in frustration and inefficiency.  

And, trying to insist that all of this be done not only on a single 
screen but within a single tool or a single program, like Mathematica, 
with all the documentation for that tool available only on that same 
screen, is also an absolutely prime way to suppress the creativity of 
all the innumerable other people in the world who might write other 
better tools, or might write better documentation for some aspect of 
Mathematica.

So:  We basically agree on some things -- but, I guess, substantially 
disagree on others.

You further add:

> The solution is simple. Every technically literate person should have
> Mathematica. A price of $295 (for the Home edition) is not unreasonable for
> people who might at first be casual users or readers. 

I absolutely agree with your second sentence -- except I'd broaden it to 
say something like "Every intellectually active individual . . .", at 
almost any age from intermediate school level to senility, and in almost 
any field, 'technical' or not.

The problem is, this is absolutely incompatible with your third 
sentence.  For the average family in this world a stripped down "Family 
Edition" in the $40 range (fully usable by mom, dad, and all the kids) 
would be more like it; $295 is at the upper level of what I'll willingly 
pay for a more or less full-bore edition of Mathematica to use in my own 
post-retirement technical consulting and scholarly explorations (and 
that's for something with at least a 4 or 5-year lifetime before I have 
to pay for any upgrades).

Mathematica needs more competition from other open-source or 
lower-priced or freeware tools that can do some of the things it does 
equally well.  It also needs some form of modular restructuring, so that 
different grades and levels of users can be served with different levels 
or subsets of the capabilities built into the complete system (I 
appreciate this may not be easy; but that doesn't make it any less 
needed).

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#3570

On 7/7/2011 4:29 AM, David Park wrote:
> AES,
>
> The "two document" approach has both feet planted in the past. The first
> "document" is really a "programmable super graphical calculator" planted in
> the recent past. The second document is a static "text, equations, diagram"
> document planted in 3000 year old technology.
>
> It is as if, after the introduction of paper or papyrus media, the mode of
> communication was to write drafts on paper but only publish by chiseling in
> stone - ignoring the fact that it is much easier to copy and distribute
> paper documents.

I think you quite miss the point of static documents, at least the best 
of them. Ruskeepaa may be right. At the risk of repeating ...

Documents provide an opportunity for an author and a reader to traverse 
a territory in a fundamentally linear fashion, together, in order to 
transmit an understanding from the author to the reader.

  A "document" with (optional) links might be written with the 
irritating sloppiness of some on-line presentations.  ( sloppy... I can 
use any new terms I wish because the reader can click on them for 
definitions, so why bother trying to present stuff in a linear fashion, 
and anyway someone might find the 5th page of my "paper" via a search 
engine and not read the introduction so why not just plop everything 
where it occurs to me...)


>
> Similarly the second of the current "two documents" nearly completely throws
> away all of the benefits of an active and dynamic mathematical medium. Such
> as:
> 1) Generated knowledge in the form of active tools for using the ideas in
> the document.
> 2) If everything is calculated, then the document has a high level of
> self-proofing and high integrity. (Perhaps not perfect, but far better that
> documents produced by word processing.) It will be more convincing to the
> reader.
> 3) A reader can quickly verify the calculated results, try variations, or
> use the material to extend the results.
> 4) An active and dynamic medium opens up many new ways to present and
> envision concepts and information that are just plain missing in static
> media.

In contrast with Ruskeepaa, I think you are confusing a showcase and a 
workshop.  If you visit a "science museum" you will see demonstrations 
of "science stuff"  often oriented towards children, but occasionally 
neat even for scientifically literate adults. These demos are presumably 
carefully crafted to emphasize some point or other; the interaction 
represents a blend of science and showmanship. I have not explored much 
of the Mathematica Demos project, but I gather it has that flavor.

A workshop or laboratory, on the other hand, is filled with the detritus 
of failed experiments, the nasty, dirty details of finding the one rock 
which is a geode and not just a solid rock, etc.

  In Mathematica, the ugly details of setting up a plot or animation, or 
sequencing the definition of a bunch of rules and adding conditions here 
and there, and "waving the dead chicken" of putting N[...] in the right 
place, and ReleaseHold or Hold or ... so it finally comes out right.. 
this is not science, nor math, nor illuminating.  This is grunge, and it 
is the grunge of (arguably) poor idiosyncratic design.

I find it far preferable to take stuff out of a computer algebra system 
as TeX and paste it into a static document.  This also provides an 
opportunity to fix the broken displays.  E.g. we really don't expect a 
display of f=ma   to  come out   f=am.   Or E=mc^2 to come out e=c^2m
(note also that E=2.718... not energy). Mathematica thinks it knows 
better than Einstein and Newton.


>
> AES, I sometimes wonder if you have ever tried to write such a document or
> ever read one. You seem to be unaware of the advantages.

I think that there is some obligation to provide backup support for 
published results that came from a computer, especially a computer 
algebra system, though this is rarely the case in journal publications. 
  An appendix or an on-line supplement, or a computational substrate 
somehow linked as an incidental coordinated computation to a section in 
a paper is something that I would welcome, in general.  Not as a 
substitute for literate logical mathematical explanation.  I would 
certainly NOT find a workshop or laboratory table or a "notebook" 
cluttered with the impedimenta of Mathematica to be a good first or 
unique presentation. Especially if notions like "equal" or "accuracy" 
are hijacked by Mathematica and do not correspond to ordinary logic or 
mathematics.

Previously I have made the distinction between a "showcase" and a 
"notebook".  You don't want to see my notebook, unless you are perhaps a 
patent lawyer. I don't want to study yours. Indeed, when I write code 
for a computer algebra system, I often do it in a text editor and then 
"batch process" it.  I fiddle a bit, and then fix the file and "batch 
process" it again, as necessary.
I try to make it as clear as possible so I can continue to work on it 
sometime later.  However, it has lots of stuff of no interest to 
bystanders for whom my "results" are some subset of my fiddling.  to 
show others I need to construct a "showcase".

Does Mathematica provide facilities to build showcases?  Sure.  However, 
the usual scientific concept of "notebook" is a different animal from a 
Mathematica notebook.  A real notebook typically has numbered bound 
pages.  You write down (and date) everything you can. You don't go back 
and erase, or tear out pages. You save your notebooks forever.
>
> The solution is simple. Every technically literate person should have
> Mathematica.

  I suppose that if you think people should learn to program a computer 
and the only programming language you are aware of is Mathematica, then 
you might conclude that people should learn Mathematica. There are 
strong incentives to favor some alternative languages, e.g. you need not 
buy them, and you might get a job.

  A price of $295 (for the Home edition) is not unreasonable for
> people who might at first be casual users or readers. It would probably be a
> good business model if the base was much enlarged. Someone has to pay the
> developers and maintainers. But how to get to that point?

Maybe Mathematica should have ads.  E.g. we interrupt this Integrate[] 
to inform you of the excellent record of success of this Cure for 
Acne.... Perhaps Wolfram Alpha does.  I thought about it as a way of 
supporting TILU.

>
> One path is to produce a free easily obtainable Mathematica Reader on the
> model of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. The reader could read the document,
> operate the controls (with maybe some minor restrictions) but not much else.

There is one, I thought. e.g. in 1994
http://archives.math.utk.edu/software/msdos/utilities/mathreader/mathread.abstract

I believe its style (free open source) was forced on Wolfram by the 
author of the (version 1, 2,) front-end of Mathematica, back then, as a 
concession. Otherwise he wouldn't write the proprietary one. There is a 
sad history there.

  At least you asked for it in 2003 --
http://www.mathkb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/mathematica/396/How-does-MathReader-work

but it seems that it has disappeared in favor of MathPlayer.

> The idea is that once users could publish in Mathematica they would write
> more literate documents.

I can't see why someone who cannot write ordinary natural language in a 
journal article would be enabled to do better in a notebook.  While 
there is a certain precision one has available from using a formal 
language, I doubt that most readers would prefer to read a program to 
natural language. Experience reading student programs suggests that the 
dominant thoughts of a reader are probably "what is going on here?" and 
"why did she do that?" and "is that deliberate?" and "huh, a call to a 
program I don't see defined here.."

  More people would see them and decide they really
> wanted to do the same (or use the generated knowledge) and so would buy
> regular Mathematica themselves. I despair that WRI will ever make this
> approach work. (A free Mathematica PlayerPro would be close but they don't
> want to do that.) WRI puts too many restrictions and caveats in their
> approaches such that it will never convince people that it will be a general
> method of publication.

You seem unforgiving of Wolfram, who, after all, is only trying to make 
money.  You seem to impute some alternative higher calling to him, like 
making the world a better place.

> For example, it looks as if all dynamics must be via
> the Manipulate statement and one cannot write custom dynamics. I was once
> hopeful, but now have doubts that this approach will ever work.
>
> One can, of course, publish technical documents within the Mathematica
> community. What is needed here is more good examples of literate documents.
> Maybe once these are seen, they will seep by osmosis to the wider community
> and win their way.

The "Mathematica Journal" has been around for a while. I don't think it 
has been especially accepted. Or the works by Michael Trott. or the math 
functions web site.
>
> It is not at all a trivial exercise to use this new medium to best
> advantage. There are many ways to go wrong, or to generate "computer junk"
> or to include things because we just found out in Mathematica how to do
> something and then include it without regard to its appropriateness or
> without regard to other techniques. It is difficult at first to even have a
> grasp of the techniques that are conducive to clear communication. We need
> the same kind of thought given to active and dynamic documents as Edward
> Tufte has given to data graphics.

Yes, I agree entirely here.  I think that Tufte is hard to match.
>
> For example, WRI has pushed the Demonstrations Project, even as a means of
> publication, and it is quite popular. Nevertheless I can't believe that this
> can ever be an acceptable general method of publishing ideas. It is far too
> restrictive, being built around a single Manipulate statement and not even
> allowing custom dynamics. A single object with a lot of knobs on it may be
> very impressive but it is not the same thing as clear communication.
> Communicating ideas and concepts will usually require development, multiple
> modes of presentation, extended textual discussion. In other words,
> something that looks more like a classic technical paper but with active
> interaction, dynamics and usable generated knowledge.

There was some effort (by me, and others) made to have NIST and its 
digital library of mathematical functions provide (free) software to 
augment its information.  I think that the editors felt they were being 
extremely ambitious in making the authors use TeX, for them a novel 
idea, but of course 20-30 years old. To introduce computer algebra 
programs too -- that would be impossible.  Maybe in another 30 years 
NIST will take another step.

RJF

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#3603

In article <iv6gqo$s5p$1@smc.vnet.net>,
 Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> I find it far preferable to take stuff out of a computer algebra system 
> as TeX and paste it into a static document.  This also provides an 
> opportunity to fix the broken displays.  E.g. we really don't expect a 
> display of f=ma   to  come out   f=am.   Or E=mc^2 to come out e=c^2m
> (note also that E=2.718... not energy). Mathematica thinks it knows 
> better than Einstein and Newton.

This is an absolutely valid and substantial observation in my opinion as 
well.  

The structuring of mathematical expressions -- that is, the choice of 
symbols or notation, and the organizing and grouping and ordering of 
terms within an expression -- is a vitally important feature in reading, 
grasping, recognizing, understanding, and internalizing what they are 
saying, and what are their connections to other expressions and 
concepts.  

There is no set of rules for doing this -- only a large body of 
informally accepted conventions that have evolved over time, but that 
are very widely used.  (Anyone who wrote a treatise on e-m theory and 
used E for the magnetic field and H for the E field would be a fool; 
even writing the Poynting vector as H cross E  with the normal meanings 
of those symbols would be unnecessarily stupid.)

I appreciate why Mathematica does -- even has to do -- what it does in 
structuring mathematical expressions in its internal operations.  But 
it's very hard work to convert between that and readable mathematical 
expressions.

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#3618

In article <iv6gqo$s5p$1@smc.vnet.net>,
 Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> We need
> > the same kind of thought given to active and dynamic documents as Edward
> > Tufte has given to data graphics.
> 
> Yes, I agree entirely here.  I think that Tufte is hard to match.

Have to say that, back sometime around the early 1990s, which I was 
voluntarily teaching a small course for EE students in preparing demos 
and graphic displays on the Mac using QuickBasic (or was it Real Basic?) 
I bought Tufte to see what it might have to tell me the graphic of data 
and computed results -- and decided it had nothing really useful to say, 
was as over-hyped as it was empty of meaningful content, and discarded 
it.

Maybe I should look again . . .

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#3629

In article <iv6gqo$s5p$1@smc.vnet.net>,
 Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> Documents provide an opportunity for an author and a reader to traverse 
> a territory in a fundamentally linear fashion, together, in order to 
> transmit an understanding from the author to the reader.

And, there is no reason any printed document can not be made available 
in online PDF form as well . . . in which case this document has the 
additional, different, and vastly important advantage of being 
instantaneously electronically searchable, in minute detail.

PDF searching then gives every reader in essence an instantaneous, 
totally customizable, blazing fast index to the document.  You can 
instantaneously look for any minutiae, or any occurrences of any term, 
buried anywhere in the entire document, whether the author thought it 
important enough to include in the TOC or the author's index, or not.

[You can, in fact, search multiple PDF documents in one, with all the 
hits reported to you in one search window, with each hit a live 
clickable link to the exact point in that document.

Mathematica's primary documentation is, of course, totally lacking in 
this capability.

Ruskeepaa's book is in fact lacking in it also, since the accompanying 
CD does not contain the complete book in any one file and in PDF format, 
only in 30-odd individual chapters in HTML form

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#3662

On 8 Jul 2011, at 10:52, Richard Fateman wrote:

> I find it far preferable to take stuff out of a computer algebra system
> as TeX and paste it into a static document.  This also provides an
> opportunity to fix the broken displays.  E.g. we really don't expect a
> display of f=ma   to  come out   f=am.   Or E=mc^2 to come out e=c^2m
> (note also that E=2.718... not energy). Mathematica thinks it knows
> better than Einstein and Newton.


This argument is entirely bogus. If you really want to produce a "static 
document" in Mathematica there is no need to evaluate anything. You 
enter f=ma and it stays that way. You can also write E=mc^2 or 
whatever you like and it will stay this way too. This is so obvious it 
is hard to believe anyone could fail to have noticed it.

Of course things are different when evaluated output is concerned but it 
also obvious that it is much easier to "fix it" in Mathematica than to 
copy and paste into TeX and then fix it there.

There are good reasons for using TeX instead of Mathematica for journal 
articles (I almost always do so myself) but very few of them were given 
in this thread (and none in the above passage). One of the main reasons 
is that in fact it is often very hard and sometimes perhaps impossible 
to produce in Mathematica mathematical documents of the kind of 
professional quality that is expected by mathematics journals.

On the other hand I use Mathematica exclusively for such things as 
writing homework or exam problems for my students and almost all 
"informal" mathematical writing. The advantages of Mathematica for all 
such purposes seem to me so obvious that I won't bother listing them 
here.

Andrzej Kozlowski

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#3685

My point was that you were (probably deliberately) confusing two 
different aspects of Mathematica (and thus confusing the "naive user" 
whose interests you so often claim to represent).

The first "aspect" is that of a computer algebra system. As you know 
perfectly well, all computer algebra systems employ certain standard or 
canonical forms for representing certain mathematical expression which 
arise from algorithmic considerations and sometimes result in output 
that differs from standard mathematical practice. One, rather trivial 
example, that was discussed recently is Mathematica's outputting 
Sqrt[2*n] as Sqrt[2]*Sqrt[n], which is not the normal thing to do in 
mathematics. There is, of course, a great deal more of this kind of 
thing. Of course one can uses various programming tricks to convert such 
output into "standard" mathematics but, as you have yourself pointed 
out, it is a a little like "trying to teach a pig to sing". It is easier 
to make the necessary changes by hand (enabling "drag and drop" of text 
in the Preferences makes it, for me anyway, even easier). Doing such 
editing in Mathematica is certainly easier than doing it in TeX, where 
you (usually) have to work with the "source".

But then there is the second aspect of Mathematica and that is one of 
the things that distinguishes it from all other CAS known to me. It is 
also a complete, high quality, WYSIWIG mathematical typesetting system, 
capable of producing professional or "near professional" quality 
technical publications. If you doubt it, get hold of a copy of William 
Shaw's "Complex Analysis with Mathematica", CUP 2006 and see if you can 
tell the difference between this and similar books written in TeX.

Actually, as I wrote in my post, I think there is a difference but it 
involves very subtle things, like precise spacing, the size of secondary 
indices, and some other things that most people don't pay much attention 
to. Also, I myself have never succeeded getting Mathematica to produce a 
result as nice as Shaw's book, which is why I don't think it is easy. 
But Mathematica, even when uses as a "static editor" has lots of 
advantages over TeX editors, like the ability to paste high resolution 
pictures and parts of pdf files directly into a notebook (at least on 
the Mac). When you then print to PDF you get a single pdf file in which 
the stuff originally written in Mathematica and the things that were 
pasted in are merged seamlessly together. Achieving anything like this 
with TeX takes a great deal more effort.

Actually, Shaw's book is also a fine example of how one should approach 
Mathematica's input and output in what is primarily a mathematics book. 
Shaw clearly distinguishes Mathematica's input and output on the one 
hand form "mathematical formula's", on the other and does not attempt to 
"tweak" Mathematica's output to make it look more like conventional 
mathematics.  On the very few occasions  where the output looks 
different from standard mathematics, Shaw still keeps the Mathematica 
form in the output but uses "ordinary" notation in the text. (One such 
case involves the spacing between the symbols in a product such as x y, 
which in Mathematica's output is too wide compared with the usual 
convention in mathematics).

In any case, the point is that Mathematica is a fully capable 
mathematics typesetting system and the fact that it is also a CAS does 
not in any essential way diminish these capabilities. Personally I find 
it still too hard to achieve results as good as with TeX, particularly 
for the kind of mathematics that I do (e.g. Mahematica is not very good 
and producing "commutative diagrams" etc), but there is no reason, in 
principle, why it should not become as good in the future. The fact that 
it is a CAS is no obstacle.

Andrzej Kozlowski



On 12 Jul 2011, at 16:08, Richard Fateman wrote:

> On 7/12/2011 3:59 AM, Andrzej Kozlowski wrote:
>> On 8 Jul 2011, at 10:52, Richard Fateman wrote:
>>
>>> I find it far preferable to take stuff out of a computer algebra system
>>> as TeX and paste it into a static document.  This also provides an
>>> opportunity to fix the broken displays.  E.g. we really don't expect a
>>> display of f=ma   to  come out   f=am.   Or E=mc^2 to come out e=c^2m
>>> (note also that E=2.718... not energy). Mathematica thinks it knows
>>> better than Einstein and Newton.
>>
>>
>> This argument is entirely bogus.
>
> So you don't do what I do.
>
> If you really want to produce a "static
>> document" in Mathematica there is no need to evaluate anything. You
>> enter f=ma and it stays that way.
>
> No, I would take stuff I computed, (which might as, sub-expressions, include forms with particular mnemonic value such as f=ma...) and
> paste them into a static document.
> You can also write E=mc^2 or
>> whatever you like and it will stay this way too. This is so obvious it
>> is hard to believe anyone could fail to have noticed it.
> It is hard to believe that anyone could believe that I was interested in pasting a text or non-evaluable expression re-rendered in TeX from Mathematica into a TeX document.  Of course the intent would be to take stuff that you have computed in a computer algebra system and paste it in to a static document.  E.g.  "Here is the result of our algorithm as computed in Mathematica, with terms rearranged slightly for ease of comprehension :  .... insert TeX here .... "
>
>>
>> Of course things are different when evaluated output is concerned but it
>> also obvious that it is much easier to "fix it" in Mathematica than to
>> copy and paste into TeX and then fix it there.
>>
>> There are good reasons for using TeX instead of Mathematica for journal
>> articles (I almost always do so myself) but very few of them were given
>> in this thread (and none in the above passage). One of the main reasons
>> is that in fact it is often very hard and sometimes perhaps impossible
>> to produce in Mathematica mathematical documents of the kind of
>> professional quality that is expected by mathematics journals.
>
> So you do exactly what I do. Just wanted to argue, I suppose.
> RJF
>
>
>>
>> On the other hand I use Mathematica exclusively for such things as
>> writing homework or exam problems for my students and almost all
>> "informal" mathematical writing. The advantages of Mathematica for all
>> such purposes seem to me so obvious that I won't bother listing them
>> here.
>>
>> Andrzej Kozlowski
>>
>

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#3693

On 7/12/2011 3:59 AM, Andrzej Kozlowski wrote:
> On 8 Jul 2011, at 10:52, Richard Fateman wrote:
>
>> I find it far preferable to take stuff out of a computer algebra system
>> as TeX and paste it into a static document.  This also provides an
>> opportunity to fix the broken displays.  E.g. we really don't expect a
>> display of f=ma   to  come out   f=am.   Or E=mc^2 to come out e=c^2m
>> (note also that E=2.718... not energy). Mathematica thinks it knows
>> better than Einstein and Newton.
>
>
> This argument is entirely bogus.

So you don't do what I do.

  If you really want to produce a "static
> document" in Mathematica there is no need to evaluate anything. You
> enter f=ma and it stays that way.

No, I would take stuff I computed, (which might as, sub-expressions, 
include forms with particular mnemonic value such as f=ma...) and
paste them into a static document.
  You can also write E=mc^2 or
> whatever you like and it will stay this way too. This is so obvious it
> is hard to believe anyone could fail to have noticed it.
It is hard to believe that anyone could believe that I was interested in 
pasting a text or non-evaluable expression re-rendered in TeX from 
Mathematica into a TeX document.  Of course the intent would be to take 
stuff that you have computed in a computer algebra system and paste it 
in to a static document.  E.g.  "Here is the result of our algorithm as 
computed in Mathematica, with terms rearranged slightly for ease of 
comprehension :  .... insert TeX here .... "

>
> Of course things are different when evaluated output is concerned but it
> also obvious that it is much easier to "fix it" in Mathematica than to
> copy and paste into TeX and then fix it there.
>
> There are good reasons for using TeX instead of Mathematica for journal
> articles (I almost always do so myself) but very few of them were given
> in this thread (and none in the above passage). One of the main reasons
> is that in fact it is often very hard and sometimes perhaps impossible
> to produce in Mathematica mathematical documents of the kind of
> professional quality that is expected by mathematics journals.

So you do exactly what I do. Just wanted to argue, I suppose.
RJF


>
> On the other hand I use Mathematica exclusively for such things as
> writing homework or exam problems for my students and almost all
> "informal" mathematical writing. The advantages of Mathematica for all
> such purposes seem to me so obvious that I won't bother listing them
> here.
>
> Andrzej Kozlowski
>

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#3715

Producing a single pdf output file is today trivial in TeX -- in fact, 
that's often the default.

Inserting a graphic via a mark-up command in the source (which would 
then be included, in its entirety, in sch a pdf output) is straightforward.

But with TeX, even copy-and-paste with a graphic is simple if you use 
the LyX interface to LaTeX.

On 7/13/11 3:10 AM, Andrzej Kozlowski wrote:
>
> ...Mathematica, even when uses as a "static editor" has lots of
> advantages over TeX editors, like the ability to paste high resolution
> pictures and parts of pdf files directly into a notebook (at least on
> the Mac). When you then print to PDF you get a single pdf file in which
> the stuff originally written in Mathematica and the things that were
> pasted in are merged seamlessly together. Achieving anything like this
> with TeX takes a great deal more effort....

-- 
Murray Eisenberg                     murray@math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
Lederle Graduate Research Tower      phone 413 549-1020 (H)
University of Massachusetts                413 545-2859 (W)
710 North Pleasant Street            fax   413 545-1801
Amherst, MA 01003-9305

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#3729

You explained what everyone (or almost everyone) knows but omitted the 
only interesting part.  That is: copying *a part* of a pdf and pasting 
it into another pdf to get a third one. I don't think TeX is of any help 
with that. You can do it with the full Adobe Acrobat, but it is not free 
and it is not nearly as simple as selecting a part of a pdf with the 
mouse, copying it (only on the Mac) pasting the selected part into 
Mathematica, adding some more stuff, and printing to pdf.

Andrzej Kozlowski



On 14 Jul 2011, at 11:22, Murray Eisenberg wrote:

> Producing a single pdf output file is today trivial in TeX -- in fact,
> that's often the default.
>
> Inserting a graphic via a mark-up command in the source (which would
> then be included, in its entirety, in sch a pdf output) is straightforward.
>
> But with TeX, even copy-and-paste with a graphic is simple if you use
> the LyX interface to LaTeX.
>
> On 7/13/11 3:10 AM, Andrzej Kozlowski wrote:
>>
>> ...Mathematica, even when uses as a "static editor" has lots of
>> advantages over TeX editors, like the ability to paste high resolution
>> pictures and parts of pdf files directly into a notebook (at least on
>> the Mac). When you then print to PDF you get a single pdf file in which
>> the stuff originally written in Mathematica and the things that were
>> pasted in are merged seamlessly together. Achieving anything like this
>> with TeX takes a great deal more effort....
>
> --
> Murray Eisenberg                     murray@math.umass.edu
> Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
> Lederle Graduate Research Tower      phone 413 549-1020 (H)
> University of Massachusetts                413 545-2859 (W)
> 710 North Pleasant Street            fax   413 545-1801
> Amherst, MA 01003-9305
>

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#3530

>But if Mathematica had emerged from, and was continually further
>developed in, an open, academic, competitive environment, with
>publications, technical meetings, peer review, student involvement, and
>all the other advantages that this environment can provide, rather than
>a closed, quite secretive, and commercially driven enterprise, it would
>be even richer than it is today.

I believe there are other market segmented pricing structures that could increase proliferation of Mathematica.  I also think WRI needs an app store to encourage developers.  This would have to include a Mathematica based package management system.

Sal Mangano tweeted he would love to write more Mathematic books but knew the market was too small to make it worthwhile.  Growing the market will bring developers and drive the cost down.  Apple clearly leads the way with this model.

>Ask yourselves where many of the most important software tools of today
>emerged from? (and whether they are free and open tools, or closed and
>excessively expensive tools?)  Just to cite two of these:
>*  Unix:  The essentially open world of the original Bell Labs.
>*  TeX and LaTeX:  Donald Knuth and his academic students and disciples.

Comparing WRI to open source is very difficult.  Apple is the only company on earth to mainstream Unix.  Linux is to apple what ham radio is to cell phones.  Steve Jobs proved if you want to harness development and provide a cohesive mature product, it takes a strong unifying leader to provide direction. 

Look at all the flavors of Linux.  Even the package manager is inconsistent.  Develop for one distro and doesn't work on another without at least repackaging.  In the best case, Mathematica would appear cobbled together by people who haven't met (like another Ma* symbolic package).  In the worse case, it would become a fragmented effort that was impossible to usefully peer review.  I can't afford to use a product with a similar trajectory and fragmentation of Linux.  I use open source (subversion, Mantis).  I like it when it works.  When it doesn't, it gets pretty cold.

As far as LaTex, it might be a nice free academic tool.  It is not used in any of the commercial or defense companies I have worked at.  Regardless of fantastic numbers these examples allege, they have yet to enjoy the corporate desktop space.  Steve Wolfram isn't going to attract key developers to reliably contribute without using $$$.  I'm pretty sure corporate penetration is critical. 

As far as peer review... I'm sure WRI could provide free copies to open initiative regression testing groups that would follow the standard software development model of black box regression testing.  The software community has shown peer review of low level code is only useful in conjunction with ed output regression testing.  (many a slip between the cup and the lip)

Just my opinions,
Paul

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#3540

Thanks!  Very powerful comments.  I will have to think considerably about this.  I wonder if this is what Stephen Wolfram did?  Anyone have insight?  No doubt Heikki Ruskeepaa's work should almost ship with Mathematica.  I consider it one of a few essential books for Mathematica.


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-----Original Message-----
From: AES [mailto:siegman@stanford.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2011 5:41 AM
Subject: Re: How to write a "proper" math document

In article <iuukk8$epi$1@smc.vnet.net>,
 "McHale, Paul" <Paul.McHale@excelitas.com> wrote:

> Looking at Mathematica's admitted origins as an authoring tool for Stephen
> Wolfram to publish his books, it's stronger points become evident.  It works
> very well in the individual experiment, document and "publish" mode.  Publish
> here meaning the document is indistinguishable from a PDF with static data,
> no interaction.  A book.  I will likely stay in the standard flow of
> experiment, document and publish.  As we can see from the exchanges of
> emails, this path is sufficiently difficult to do well.  Stephen just makes
> it look easy :)

With regard to this specific situation of going from notebook to "static
book", let me quote from the 3rd edition of Heikki Ruskeepaa's masterful
Mathematica Navigator.  Navigator is of course "a book" -- a superb book
-- written in Mathematica.

But in Section 3.4 of this book, entitled "Writing Mathematica
Documents" and following a subsection on "Mathematica as a Writing
Tool", Ruskeepaa has a subsection which reads as follows:

=================
Main and Working Documents

When writing a mathematical document with Mathematica, it may be useful
to work simultaneously with two documents: a {\it main document} and a
{\it working document. The main document will grow into the final
publication, whereas all computations are done in the working document.
Mathematical results, tables, and graphics are copied from the working
document into the main document. This division into two documents may be
needed because the main document may not contain the Mathematica
commands but only the results. The working document contains all used
Mathematica commands so that all computations can easily be done again.

   The working document should include the same sections as are in the
main document so that you can easily find the computations of a certain
section. Add into the working document comments about the computations,
such as any difficulties that may arise; they may be valuable if you
need to do similar computations at a later time.

   When you have completed the writing project, you will then have the
main document ready to be printed and the working document that will
enable you to redo and modify computations as needed.
==========================
=================

Repeat:  _two_ documents.  And although I can't track down the exact
quote, I believe that in an earlier edition Ruskeepaa states even more
explicitly that this approach is how he wrote his book.

In a recent post I've suggested a variation on this two-document
approach: a Mathematic notebook which contains all the "text" content
(not necessarily cleanly formatted for publication) and does all the
computations, and then a post-processor (written in whatever language
you like) which intelligently converts that notebook into a TeX or LaTeX
document, which (after minor touchup) produces the book.

I believe there are two great advantages to this approach:

1)  It uses the best tool for each separate task -- and thereby does
each of them better, more powerfully, AND more easily.

2)  Instead of every individual who uses Mathematica having to struggle
to learn how to do both the technical computations _and_ the
publications formatting simultaneously in one tool (and instead of, as a
result, enormously complicating and messing up the syntax and interface
to Mathematica, to its substantial detriment), put the hard work of
writing the post-processor on a few skilled individuals, who know how to
do that sort of thing.

(In fact, multiple post-processors are likely to emerge and compete in
this situation -- the best results of meaningful competition.)

In any event, let's note:  Even a Mathematica wizard like Heikki
Ruskeepaa ended up using a _two_ document approach -- he did NOT
docomputation and publication, all in one single notebook.

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