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It's a lot easier to write Mathematica than it is to read it. I've come up with some retrospectively-horrific functions that were intuitively easy to write - ju

It's a lot easier to write Mathematica than it is to read it. I've come up with some retrospectively-horrific functions that were intuitively easy to write - just keep piling on the functions, really. It's like the standard mistake when children learn maths of writing "If x=-1, then x^2+2x+1 = (x+1)^2 + 5 = 5" when they mean "x^2+2x+1 = (x+1)^2; then (x+1)^2 + 5 = 5": Mathematica makes it very easy to write in a completely unreadable stream of consciousness.

allegory 12y ago
This. Some novel form of input would be nice. The few times I've used mathematica it has been slightly painful in this department. I've been using a TI nSpire calculator on and off for math and it's pretty decent with respect to readability on the input and output side of things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpmpFis8RQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpmpFis8RQM Even carries the input/output semantics into the programming language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTdvIm9coXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTdvIm9coXk (just skip around the videos to see the input/outputs)
philbarr 12y ago
Don't you mean: x^2+2x+1 = (x+1)^2; If x=-1, then (x+1)^2 + 5 = 5
snicker 12y ago
An ability to switch back and forth to a sort of "graph" view would be tremendously helpful, as most people tend to have a better ability to process visual information rather than a stream of text
- cschmidt 12y ago
  You can't use it as an input form, but you can view a nice tree of your expression automatically. TreeForm[ x^2 + 2 x + 1 == (x + 1)^2]
akater 12y ago
> It's a lot easier to write Mathematica than it is to read it. +1. And it gets even more easier to read (“read”? :-) when you can select pieces in FrontEnd, with multiple mouse clicks or a corresponding hotkey. I got so used to it that I actually developed phantom pains in my editing of Html or TeX (or whatever, for that matter).

allegory 12y ago

This. Some novel form of input would be nice. The few times I've used mathematica it has been slightly painful in this department. I've been using a TI nSpire calculator on and off for math and it's pretty decent with respect to readability on the input and output side of things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpmpFis8RQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpmpFis8RQM Even carries the input/output semantics into the programming language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTdvIm9coXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTdvIm9coXk (just skip around the videos to see the input/outputs)

philbarr 12y ago

Don't you mean: x^2+2x+1 = (x+1)^2; If x=-1, then (x+1)^2 + 5 = 5

snicker 12y ago

An ability to switch back and forth to a sort of "graph" view would be tremendously helpful, as most people tend to have a better ability to process visual information rather than a stream of text

cschmidt 12y ago
You can't use it as an input form, but you can view a nice tree of your expression automatically. TreeForm[ x^2 + 2 x + 1 == (x + 1)^2]

akater 12y ago

> It's a lot easier to write Mathematica than it is to read it. +1. And it gets even more easier to read (“read”? :-) when you can select pieces in FrontEnd, with multiple mouse clicks or a corresponding hotkey. I got so used to it that I actually developed phantom pains in my editing of Html or TeX (or whatever, for that matter).