[Scilab-users] Generating a boolean vector or matrix

[Samuel Gougeon]

Le 05/09/2019 à 12:44, Antoine Monmayrant a écrit :
> Le 05/09/2019 à 11:28, Lamy Alain a écrit :
>>
>> What I didn’t like at first is to use “ones” for a boolean type.
>>
> That was also my first reaction.
> When comparing the learning curve and overall ease of use of scilab 
> with other options (matlab, julia, python), I always come to the 
> conclusion that the biggest problem with scilab is the use of 
> non-intuitive function names.
> For example 'horner' for polynom evaluation as compared to 'polyval' 
> is far from obvious unless you are already quite versed in polynom theory.


Sincerely, my own learning curve is as steep with "polyval" as with 
"horner".
"polyval" means nothing to me (why not the values of coefficients?), 
while "eval" does.
And "eval" would be meaningful as well for rationals, as horner, while 
polyval would
be just still more puzzling.

It would be trivial to make eval() working as presently horner() does, 
and deprecate (or undocument) horner().

> If you couple non-intuitive function names (at least for 
> non-specialist and casual users)
> with a documentation that is far from perfect, this scares a lot of 
> possible users.

Your actual contributions are welcome and certainly expected.
Things that look obvious for some users that have got some habits may be 
rather obscure for all other ones.

This is why special and open care should be the rule when some new 
public symbols (functions, options, etc) are introduced.

For the time being, this should apply to the forthcoming 6.1.0, and your 
constructive criticism is expected about the new announced (or dark) 
features, /before/ they are released.

Best regards
Samuel

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.scilab.org/pipermail/users/attachments/20190915/ce6ab1bf/attachment.htm>