Don't quite understand this... Message #18 Posted by gene wright on 21 June 2010, 12:19 p.m., in response to message #9 by John Stark
I must admit I can't quite understand the comment:
"I have no use for it. If it can't be done with keystrokes, out comes Excel..."
For example, computing the coefficient of variation requires accessing the standard deviation and the mean. Both of these are in menus, so they are accessible by "keystrokes". By my count, it takes 5 keystrokes to get to the mean and 7 to get to the standard deviation, plus the keystrokes to store these values and do the required division. Since those are keystrokes, your comment might suggest you would use the 30b and not go off to Excel.
However, by writing an INCREDIBLY short / easy program ONE TIME, you can compute the coefficient of variation in a total of 2 keystrokes.
So, at least 14-15 keystrokes turned into 2 by spending 5-10 minutes writing a program.
Sure, if you only compute that one time, then why bother? But if there are any things you do that you might need to do repeatedly, then the time spent is very well rewarded.
Using functions in menus are much more user-friendly when placed into VERY short programs and assigned to keys. The examples in the learning modules show how to assign the inverse trig functions to the shift-hold trig key positions. MUCH easier and faster than going through the menus.
I think that was Don's point. You can certainly access those through keystrokes, but why not consider entering a few short programs one time to reduce your keystroke count by a large number?
And, yes, we're all different, I know.
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