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From: dana@are.berkeley.edu (Dana E. Keil)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Applications that create mathematical formulae
Message-ID: <38544@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 30 Aug 90 16:32:00 GMT
References: <25543.26DA84E1@stjhmc.fidonet.org>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: UC Berkeley, Dept of Agricultural & Resource Economics
Lines: 42

In article <25543.26DA84E1@stjhmc.fidonet.org> Chris.Gehlker@p12.f56.n114.z1.fidonet.org (Chris Gehlker) 
replies to a question:
>> Does anyone know of any applications out there whose sole purpose is to
>> create mathematical formulae for inclusion to the word processor of your
>> choice.
>
>There was a review of 4 of these pupies in MacUser.  Around the June issue I
>believe.

As one who uses MathType daily, (disclaimer warning: I have been a beta
tester for MathType, I don't have any monetary stake in it at all)
I have to say that the reviewer really
dropped the ball in this review by criticizing MathType for something
that I think should be considered a plus. I think the reviewer's criticism
came from reviewing the program while not taking the time to figure out
what it does. Specifically, the reviewer didn't like the fact that MathType
(as compared, apparently, to some of the others) will do certain things
automatically for you. For example, it will distinguish between
certain combinations of characters to decide whether they should be considered
variables or functions. If a variable it will be italicized, if a function it
will be displayed in plain type. It does this automatically and on the fly
so that typing the letter l and the letter o will yield italicized characters
but as soon as you type the letter g the type of the three letters will change
to plain and you have the function "log".

In the review MathType is criticized for doing this as if its a constraint that
makes the program somehow less flexible. What the reviewer didn't say and
apparently didn't know is that this automatic formatting is very easy to control
and turn off when you don't want it while saving a lot of time by automatically
doing it for you instead of you having to take the time to manually indicate
whether "log" should be displayed in plain or italics. Let me know if I'm wrong
but isn't this the reason we're getting and using computers?

Because of this flaw in the review, I think that the "mouse-ratings" for
the programs reviewed are not right and that MathType should have at least
the same rating or better than the others. I have to quickly add here that I
have not used any of the other programs so I am not qualified to come up with my
own ratings; it just looks to me like the only stated reason for the difference
in the number of mice awarded is the reviewer's mistaken notion of some kind of
inflexibility in MathType. It seems to me that, on the contrary, MathType is
a very flexible, configurable program that saves time by doing things the way
you want them without you having to do them manually.