[rescue] octane question

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 02:46:08PM -0500, Dave McGuire wrote:

>   I disagree...I pay most of my bills online.  Click, click, paid.  Done.

OK, if you are paying online, fine.  I distrust paying for things online.  I
will do it occasionally, but I'm not happy about it.
 
>>Second, it is at this time a superior way to work on math, program flow ideas
>>and in general other things that require near realtime capturing of graphics
>>from head to other medium.  Basically, Mathematica is a great way to test 
>>ideas, but I can't "think" in Mathematica, and I think faster than my palm
>>can keep up with.
> 
>   Ahh, now THIS is certainly understandable.  I tend to work on very
> different sorts of things, so I don't often think about stuff like this.
> I must confess, though, that I do sketch out program flow stuff for
> complex constructs that I have difficulty visualizing in my head.

The last large web site I did, the person who contracted me was rather 
surprised that for the first week I worked solely on a news print pad 
sketching page layouts, how people would flow through the site, how the code
would flow, data structures, etc.  In the end I had 10 full pages that 
provided a fairly comprehensive guide for where we were going, and the final
results were pretty simular to the design.  It was kinda cool seeing 
extensive design actually work.  I still abhor Rational though.
 
>> Now, another project I've been kicking around is a idea for a new type of 
>> symbolic math system.  The initial revision would be handwriting recognition
>> of some sort (probably a modified graffiti) coupled to a system like Maxima
>> and gnuplot typed together with a custom front end.  Basically the new stuff
>> would be how you manipulate the equations, graphs, et al, on the screen in
>> a more intuitive way that mathematica.  IE, emulating paper, except that you
>> don't need to do the math in your head.
> 
>   That could be cool.  Sounds like a monumental undertaking, though.

Yes.  And unlike other ideas I mention from time to time, I really haven't
done anything about starting on this one.  So far it consists of a series
of notes on my harddrive at home.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd