IFTE odd behaviour

[rprosperi]

(10-17-2019 05:16 AM)cyrille de brébisson Wrote:  hello,

CAS.???? and HOME.???? does work as well, but people did not like it...

We found that people do not like clarity at the cost of more keystrokes (see the numerous jaunts about long function names and number of keystrokes to get to a function that have been made by various persons)...

Another good example is F1..
F1 is a function app variable. However it is accessible from anywhere, any app without having to do Function.F1...
Why? Because, for the sake of "simplification" and "ease of use" we were forced by user to allow some selected variables to be recognized even when out of scope.

I still remember being told that "regular users" would not understand the concept of "scope" and that everything needed to be accessible from everywhere without such "extremely complex mechanism"...

This is how we ended up with the current system... At least, it gives us the opportunity to have fun discussing such details :-)

Cyrille

I was not aware one could prefix CAS. and HOME. as desired - thanks for clarifying that. Using them conveniently would of course require handy key assignments (where there is never enough room), since as you say, folks already complain about the long names.

(searching the Prime User Guide, the "CAS." prefix actually is described in a parenthetical note on p.74, but the "HOME." prefix is not found. So, I don't feel as bad, but also must admit I have not read most of the manual)

Without a doubt, the hardest thing about product development is deciding which of those things that users "want" to give them, vs. which to not provide as they request because in the end, you "know" more than they do about what they really need.

In this case, targeting High School students while also hoping to appeal to crusty old RPN and RPL farts like us is truly a mission impossible, as the "wants" are pretty far apart.

There's no doubt in my mind that while less intuitive, RPL is better than RPN in nearly every way (preparing to duck and run...) but it would not have happened at all if Bill Wickes and team had asked RPN users what they wanted.