Re: MuPAD bugs: series can return 6 terms only

From: Will Twentyman (wtwentyman_at_read.my.sig)
Date: 02/24/05 

Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 14:16:47 -0500

Richard Kanarek wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I can't say that I agree with your (rather harsh) assessment of Mr.
> Bondarenko.
>
> Although I'm sure he can state his reasons better than I can, it would
> appear that Mr. Bondarenko's efforts are "motivated" by a particular
> dislike of CAS software defects ("bugs") and a particular fondness for
> the automated method he developed (and is marketing?) for detecting
> defects.
>
> I think that castigating Mr. Bondarenko for not "reporting" bugs is
> wholly incorrect. I don't see how Mr. Bondarenko, who is presumably
> not employed by one of the CAS producers, can be considered obligated
> to report their bugs in strict accordance with their rules. Further,
> posting reports of the bugs here ought to be enough. If a little (?)
> company/group like Sciface, or at least an occasional
> employee/associate/(indentured grad student <g>) can bother to stop by
> every now and again, surely someone from the other companies could be
> bothered to too.

Here's the problem: Is there any evidence that anyone from those groups
is actually seeing these? The people who read these groups are a
self-selecting group, who may not be in a position to openly discuss
their products or research. I happened to learn about usenet in the
early 90s while I was in college. I was away from it for a while, and
have since returned to reading it. Unfortunately, in the current
society we have, this medium is also viewed by some as something of a
dinosaur. To expect the people working on these systems to be here is
unreasonable. I hope a few are reading, but I wouldn't bet on it.

> Lastly, I'm glad that Mr. Bondarenko's loose cannon has swung around
> to MuPAD. I'm currently a reasonably "happy" MuPad user/Sciface
> customer. If Mr. Bondarenko can help keep SciFace focused on quality
> improvements, while warning me of current problems, I can only get
> happier.

Thus my question. Why not directly communicate with those who can fix
the software, instead of broadcasting the findings to us? They may not
fix it, but at least then he could be certain it was known. 

-- 
Will Twentyman
email: wtwentyman at copper dot net