The issue is what, exactly, one wishes to convey by a short, introductory,
video. One possibility is an advertising blurb that tells who uses the language
and for what wonderful purposes. Another starts out with some fundamental
notions of the language ("you form an array like this, assign it to a name like
this, transpose it like that using a one-argument function, etc. And yet
another -- the kind in the videos I cited, just gives a feel for what using the
language is like by actually coding some simple yet moderately useful example.
Yes, a demo like Cliff Hastings makes things seem deceptively easy. But: (1)
the help system for this particular programming system is so incredibly rich
that one could discover how to do all this oneself; and (2) this demo is
actually part 8 of an 8-part series of videos. (I just couldn't lay my hands on
the free-standing, self-contained, similar demo that Hastings had posted
elsewhere.)
[Note. There is NO error in the first plot of the fitted line: the origin is
not at (0,0) or (1,0) but at (5,0) -- because that's what the system selected
as best showing the line's plot. In the second plot, of the original,
quadratic, data together with the linear fit, the system again selects a
suitable origin, in this case (0,0). And if you don't want to let this
sophisticated system make such choices for you, you can always override its
choices, in this instance by specifying an option AxesOrigin -> {0, 0} .]
On 14 Feb 2014 20:02:42 -0700, Don Guinn <dongu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just viewed the videos by Cliff Hastings for Wolfram. Surprised to see that
> there looked like an error in the second video on making a first order fit
> showing the line going above the origin when x=0. Later it showed it
> correctly. Sent him a note about that.
>
> But what really bothers me about demos like this is that they look so easy
> when they do it, but if I were to try to do it I wouldn't know where to
> start. He implied that one could do it without knowing much of anything of
> their system. I really get tired of videos like this where they type really
> fast and it looks so easy if one just knew their system well, but I usually
> don't. If I was presented that screen and wanted to do what he did I
> wouldn't have a clue what to do.
>
> We need to present similar videos on J, but somehow we need to make it
> obvious and logical as to what to do. His video was neat, but could I do it
> as quickly and easily as he did it without putting in hours, possibly days
> learning their system? I doubt it.
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 7:17 PM, Murray Eisenberg
> <mur...@math.umass.edu>wrote:
>
>> If you'd like to see what a good quick demo looks like, done by one guy
>> with no fancy production values -- and of a language/system having a
>> state-of-the-art user interface, take a look at either of the following:
>>
>>
>> http://www.wolfram.com/broadcast/search.php?Search=app%20minute&x=-879&y=-139&video=728
>>
>> http://www.wolfram.com/broadcast/video.php?channel=86&video=869
>>
>> On 14 Feb 2014 19:00:45 -0500, Henry Rich <henryhr...@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>>> As Ian [Clark] observed, a newcomer's first 5 minutes with J will be
>> decisive in
>>> establishing their attitude towards the language. As things stand, it
>>> takes a serious geek to take a shine to J in 5 minutes. Just between us
>>> geeks, I wish there were more of us, but that's not the way to bet.
>>>
>>> No, we need a snappy demo: an application that everyone can relate to,
>>> showing how we can code something meaningful and get a pretty display in
>>> under 5 minutes. Ideally it should be a YouTube video, with an
>>> accompanying Lab so the interested user can reproduce the results
——
Murray Eisenberg mur...@math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
Lederle Graduate Research Tower phone 240 246-7240 (H)
University of Massachusetts
710 North Pleasant Street
Amherst, MA 01003-9305
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