Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!previous.cis.ohio-state.edu!jgreely
From: jgreely@previous.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: 0.9 Mathematica
Message-ID: <47558@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 9 May 89 15:23:56 GMT
References: <11181@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Reply-To: J Greely <jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: The Ohio State University, Department of
              Computer and Information Science
Lines: 54


(this one I know, and I don't even have 0.9 yet!)

In article <11181@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> tytso@athena.mit.edu
 (Theodore Y. Ts'o) writes:
>Has anyone gotten 0.9 Mathematica to print anything at all?  No matter what I
>do, I just get a blank page.

According to the release notes (which are on-line), 0.9 Mathematica
doesn't print.  I imagine the best way to get printouts is by
cut-and-pasting into WriteNow.  If you can't get the PostScript
objects to work, how about converting to TIFF?  I spotted this
somewhere on the menus when I had a chance to look at it.

>I don't think I'm doing 
>anything wrong, but without source code I can't be sure.

Well, this is the worst attempt at a reason for having source code
I've seen yet.  In fact, I can't imagine what earthly good source code
(presumably for the Mathematica front end) would do you in this case,
particularly if you're not sure whether it's your problem or the
program's.  RTFM before you BT(W)FN.

  I'm not trying to run you through the toaster here, but I think you
jumped on the source bandwagon for the wrong reason.  I want source,
but I don't want to *use* it unless there's nothing else I can do.
Proprietary source has a way of tainting the reader, preventing you
from being able to do any work in that area later.  Your suggested use
sounds a bit too casual for me, especially since I know this is a
documented limitation of the program under 0.9.

  My experience with 0.8 is that most major bugs were known before it
got out the door, and documented in the release notes.  Knowing this,
my first response to something that looks broken is to see if NeXT
knows about it yet.  So far, the few they didn't know that were really
bugs (as opposed to philosophical issues) were quickly reported by
several locations.  According to rumor, most of those have even been
fixed already.

  While we're on the subject, do you really *want* to see beta source?
Personally, I don't want to know where they've buried the children.


			"But *sniff*, you will come
			 back to play with us again,
			 won't you?"
			 			"Of *course* I will!
						 On the second Tuesday
						 of next week."
			"Hooway! Hooway!
			 Wait!  The *second*
			 Tuesday?"
-=-
J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)