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From: dpb <none@non.net>
Newsgroups: comp.soft-sys.matlab
Subject: Re: Matlab bugs
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:09:32 -0500
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Jeremy Smith wrote:
> The problem is that this change was not noted anywhere.  I 
> searched the bug fixes and change notes before posting here.  
> I would be happy being able to search revisions.  Where do I 
> find the revision history of a specific function  or do I 
> have to hope the changes are obvious?

I'm sure it was noted somewhere internal to TMW, but that doesn't help 
the end user unless those changes get reflected to some public document, 
granted.

I've commented before that one weakness I see in Matlab documentation in 
particular is that it doesn't have a formal syntax document or published 
"internal Standard" for lack of better term.  Hence the only 
documentation on behavior is the help files which are written in large 
part as informal "how to" and the actual code for accessible m-files.

This is a problem w/ any language/software product to more or less a 
degree of course; it just seems more of an issue in my mind w/ the 
proprietary products as opposed to languages that do have formal 
Standards--there, at least, there is a public declaration of how the 
specified portions of the language are to behave and it becomes one of 
conformance to the Standard (or occasionally interpretation).

There is still a significant difference in a RAD-type tool such as 
Matlab vis a vis a more general language in that despite the size of, 
say, C and the rtl, there are so many more functions in a tool such as 
Matlab the requirement for even more complete documentation would make a 
significant additional burden on TMW.  'Tis not an enviable task ...

--