[Off-topic] HP Prime is for students... What about professionals?

[chromos]

Occasionally, some users complain here that the HP Prime is aimed at students and that the HP Prime lacks some features for serious professional use. As a response, they are receiving that it was hp's intention. This is something that puzzles me for a long time. After all, students will become professionals one day, right? Which calculator should they use then? Although I'm trying my best, still cannot find the answer.

---
[I learn English by reading on a websites (e.g. like this one), so I apologize in advance for its quality. My intention is to be polite, but not always I know how to do it in english.]

[DrD]

(08-20-2017 05:28 PM)chromos Wrote:  After all, students will become professionals one day, right? Which calculator should they use then? Although I'm trying my best, still cannot find the answer.

As professionals, some of those students might join HP and be able to bring to the market professional users tools ...

[Archanus]

(08-20-2017 05:28 PM)chromos Wrote:  Occasionally, some users complain here that the HP Prime is aimed at students and that the HP Prime lacks some features for serious professional use. As a response, they are receiving that it was hp's intention. This is something that puzzles me for a long time. After all, students will become professionals one day, right? Which calculator should they use then? Although I'm trying my best, still cannot find the answer.

---
[I learn English by reading on a websites (e.g. like this one), so I apologize in advance for its quality. My intention is to be polite, but not always I know how to do it in english.]

Totally agree with you I said this many times, but the admins and moderators got angry with me..... Thanks for posting this... I hope the devs will improve the calculator more....

[Eric Rechlin]

In my experience, the students who become professionals always just keep using the same calculator they used as a student, if they even use a calculator. Otherwise they just use tools on their PC (like Excel, Wolfram Alpha, the Google search box, or the operating system's built-in calculator) and have no need for a physical calculator.

This means that the student market is the only truly relevant market anymore. As much as I'd like to see a new calculator for professionals, I acknowledge that the likely market size would be too small to make it profitable.

[matthiaspaul]

(08-20-2017 07:32 PM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  This means that the student market is the only truly relevant market anymore. As much as I'd like to see a new calculator for professionals, I acknowledge that the likely market size would be too small to make it profitable.

However, HP is already targeting multiple platforms at once (physical calculator in three revisions, PC emulator, adaptations to various smartphones), so it appears relatively easy to add yet another similar variant. A physical calculator based on the Prime, but with beeper, SD card support and (optional) support for standard batteries, and firmware-wise without Exam mode, but various additions in the software which might be unsuitable for a calculator for pupils, but are easy enough to add to not cause major development. If maintaining two similar hardware models would be cost-prohibitive, putting all the features into a single model and disable undesired features in exam mode would increase the price of the calculator only marginally. In the worst case, two different firmwares could be made available, a closed system with exam mode, and another more open one without exam mode, where experienced users could even start implementing system extensions, thereby accelerating development and adding features which would be uneconomically for HP to work on.

The market for "professionals" is certainly smaller, but many of them would also work as multiplicators, and they would also function as experienced bug-hunters and find bugs and shortcomings pupils will almost never find (unless run into them in an exam and completely ruin HP's image).

Greetings,

Matthias

[Claudio L.]

As Matthias proposed, perhaps with relatively small firmware/hardware change they can create a "pro" version, then every student that graduates would (in theory) have a good reason to buy a new HP Prime Pro, instead of keep using the same Prime forever.
It also creates a sense of competition between students, those having the "Pro" version can brag more, therefore will try to get daddy to pay for the Pro model at a premium.
Isn't it how phone companies do it? A negligible and worthless improvement becomes "the next big thing" and they get to sell phones all over again to the very same people. People are used to that, so they would fall for it.
Perhaps the next Prime should be waterproof, and that's all it needs for students to buy it again. Then the next gen should have interchangeable colored backplates, complete with a surprise collectable sticker inside the battery compartment!
Only a few would leave the production line with a sticker with TW's face, appealing also to the desperate collectors. I know a few people in this forum would buy 4 or 5 Primes just to see if they are lucky enough to get the rare sticker.

[toml_12953]

(08-21-2017 11:52 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  Only a few would leave the production line with a sticker with TW's face, appealing also to the desperate collectors. I know a few people in this forum would buy 4 or 5 Primes just to see if they are lucky enough to get the rare sticker.

Will it get me a tour of a chocolate factory?

[JimP]

(08-20-2017 05:28 PM)chromos Wrote:  Occasionally, some users complain here that the HP Prime is aimed at students and that the HP Prime lacks some features for serious professional use. As a response, they are receiving that it was hp's intention. This is something that puzzles me for a long time. After all, students will become professionals one day, right? Which calculator should they use then? Although I'm trying my best, still cannot find the answer.

I found that many of the functions I needed as a student were never encountered in professional life. That said, I'd much rather have those functions on a machine with which I was familiar, and be able to take them onwards. What surprises me is the number of "scientific" calculators that do not contain financial calculations, even the basic N, I, PV, FV, PMT set. But the graphic models seem to have these as an app(lication. Hate that abb(reviation)) so Prime and 50g for instance give those willing to put in the time to learn them useful tools that will help young professionals as they move forward into real life! The beauty of the Prime is its backlit screen, which an old goat can read. Such is not the case with some of the TI (eg 89Ti) models that, however powerful, have dreadful displays. The only other machine that comes close is the Casio CP400, but (argh...no RPN....). Downside - CAS-powered machines are not often allowed in exams, but then again Prime's CAS ability can be disabled into exam mode, which makes it a great all-rounder.

[Morten Pors]

HP should just add the directory/file system similar to the 48-49-50 series calculators. In my eyes that would make the Prime much more useful as a tool. But as Tim Wessman reminded us, they "just don't support that". So people are left with the rather slow, lo-res, not-usable-in-dim-light 50G, for professional use. The defining characteristic of which often being repetitive tasks and the requirement to effectively tie in with an existing body of method and data of a certain amount.

They are both great machines really, just some seemingly strange choices on HP's behalf product-wise. I mean, most students will happily cope with professional features they don't need while not so much the other way around. I often dream of the hybrid - something like the 50G with the Prime's screen and tactile graphic interface. Or just a file system on the Prime, please.

[Tim Wessman]

(08-28-2017 12:07 PM)Morten Pors Wrote:  HP should just add the directory/file system similar to the 48-49-50 series calculators.

I would beg to differ that the "directory/file system" on the 48s was anything such.

'Directories' in the 48 are binary objects. They were not a generic file system. Nor would doing something like putting an item into the "hidden" directory work out very well if you did it wrong (wipe your memory).

In addition, ports of different rules, libraries with read only data, "directories" not working from the SD card, and similar behaviors existed. There wasn't a "generic" directory/file system on those units. It just pretended to be one from a casual look. In reality, it was a very limited system with many strange behaviors.

One decision they made was the "look upwards through the directories to find something". Could you image that on a computer or phone and the havoc it would cause?


I think the more important question is "what is the real thing you want directories for?" and figure out how to make that work in a device that DOES utilize a real filesystem and generic directories like Prime. You can directly modify and work with a folder on the computer and drop it into the Prime copying generic data of any kind (pngs, txt, etc) and have access to them. That is something that was never possible on the 48. What we have limited is the ability to get in an browse/modify the main directory directly on the device because we do not have answers to the following questions yet.

Lets say you have access to generic data/directories in any location in the Prime. You make something called "myvar" and store it. Is that a variable? Is it a file? How should it be treated when the user types in "myvar"? Should it be cached to allow quick access? Should it be read from disk each time? What if the user modifies the binary data, or changes it to be something else?


Most of the discussion I've had with users regarding "i want directories and files" generally returns to one of these OTHER things that really aren't related to that, but a general complaint:

1. I want to be able to type in generic things and have them recognized as variables. (I agree the system is problematic in this way for this specific type of use case and needs improvement. Switching everything so all program and syntax errors are caught after executiong ala 48 though isn't an improvement. There are plenty of steps that can be taken first that will greatly improve things and you may end up liking better)
2. They want to have a menu system with variables accessed on the lower part of the screen. (nothing to do with directory/files, more a ui thing)
3. They want RPN equal to the 48. (Hey, i get this. Wish I could do it. The CAS probably couldn't possibly support RPN which would leave a huge gap in the implementation)


So I really am very interested in the discussion here to discover what the real, root desire is and how it can possibly be implemented. Unfortunately, there really isn't a simple solution that sweeps all the problems away that I've been able to see yet.

[Carlos295pz]

(08-28-2017 10:28 PM)Tim Wessman Wrote:  That is something that was never possible on the 48. What we have limited is the ability to get in an browse/modify the main directory directly on the device because we do not have answers to the following questions yet.

Lets say you have access to generic data/directories in any location in the Prime. You make something called "myvar" and store it. Is that a variable? Is it a file? How should it be treated when the user types in "myvar"? Should it be cached to allow quick access? Should it be read from disk each time? What if the user modifies the binary data, or changes it to be something else?

I am sincerely happy how is organized the work with files / App with the AFiles and AFilesB variables. Although the calculator may have its own way of understanding the files, I think it is convenient to leave the files as files and not as variables, read from disk each time. As for AFilesB I would like it to have a file cloning option that avoids the list limit = 10000 when extracting bytes.

(08-28-2017 10:28 PM)Tim Wessman Wrote:  They want to have a menu system with variables accessed on the lower part of the screen. (nothing to do with directory/files, more a ui thing)

The calculator does not have F1-6 keys, I would not ask for that.




Many things are related to the lack of a low-level language for programs, although HP PPL is really fast; More related to the protection of the source code.

Personally although I know it is a difficult request, I would like to have a single contender for the creation of keyboard shortcuts. With the user keyboard for applications not tengo problems, it is perfect that each App can have its own keyboard and that it dominates over the general.

Also an improvement for the management of files through the Connectivity Kit, such as showing the folder where you stayed in the previous search, correcting closing errors by sending files, and also an own control of the Kit for large files as a message when the files exceed 5MB, for example: "This file is too large for the calculator, are you sure you can use it? Ok?"



Some Apps can take advantage of file generation, but the Connectivity Kit does not make it easy to extract them individually or file sharing between Apps by dragging.

[TravisE]

Tim:

What I really liked about the 48/49/50g was that virtually every type of data was an “object” and could be moved around and organized in the system in the same way. All of them, including programs, could be stored on the stack, in variables, or even in lists. Everything from system commands, “directories”, grobs, even fonts could be as well, since they were also considered objects. This was a refreshingly consistent abstraction which led to a lot of simplicity and flexibility when it came to developing advanced programs.

The Prime, on the other hand, seems to abandon the “everything is an object” idea, and many types of data, particularly programs and apps, are “special” and can't be manipulated in the same way. If I understand correctly, programs can only exist in a special, flat programs menu, and they can't directly be stored and executed in a variable hierarchy, nor be passed as parameters to other programs, nor collected and organized in a list or other data container object. This makes certain types of programming problems a lot harder to solve.

Yes, trying to use the directory-resolution scheme of the 50g/et.al. on a normal disk filesystem on a modern general computer OS would probably result in a lot of chaos, because they were not designed for such a scheme. But for 50g RAM objects living in an interface that was designed with this behavior in mind, I have found it an indispensable data model. I even managed once (without actually realizing it, even) to simulate a poor-man's version of object-oriented programming. I wrote a program where I used directories sort of like classes. Each directory was an object “instance” which I could store variables of particular standard names in and use as if they were class attributes (numbers, strings, etc.) or methods (programs). The program engine would use the contents of those variables to control its operation, and I could quickly customize it with different sets of parameters by simply swapping out the directory “classes” (or even add routines to manipulate them dynamically at runtime). And, by placing variables of the same names in higher level directories, I could provide for default values to be used in the case of variables that did not exist in a particular directory object (somewhat like single-inheritance). The 50g's system UI made navigating and editing the model quick and easy, and it made for a clean and very flexible architecture. Admittedly, this is probably a rather unorthodox use of 50g “directories”, but I used it because it was there and was a good match for my problem.

When I got the Prime, I wanted to port this program to it and take advantage of the more powerful display and processing speed, but have not been able to think of a way to preserve a similar design. The syntax for saving and retrieving persistent variables and objects as app variables feels overly verbose and clunky, it only provides a flat storage model, and small program routines cannot be saved as variables (unless perhaps they are converted to and from strings, which makes them inconvenient to create and edit). As far as I can tell, I'd have to store all data flat and write my own framework to be able to treat it like a nested hierarchy (and hope that performance of doing this from an interpreted language won't be too big an issue). It seems that I'd have to place all the customizable code routines I want to use directly in the main program source file (which could become quite large, and the Prime editor is not pleasant to use with large source files). Compared with being able to individually store and edit small program routines in a conveniently-navigable hierarchy of variables, this feels like a major disadvantage.

Of course, some of the 48g/49g/50g behaviors don't make sense on a “real” disk file system, which is probably why (along with technical limitations) the 50g treats the SD card and port memory differently. There are some good questions you raise, and I'd have to think about those.

As an alternative to “directories”, one thing I think might be helpful is if there was a key/value-store data type, sort of like how AFiles works, but which could be stored collectively as a single unit in a variable, passed as a parameter to functions and programs, and accept other key/value stores as values (as well as anything else that could be stored in a regular program variable), which would allow for convenient storage and manipulation of nested data hierarchies in programs. This could be used to at least simulate directories in some respects, which are conceptually similar. Modifying and storing back a deeply-nested value, on the other hand, could be syntactically inconvenient unless some means is provided to access them by reference instead of by value, at least for the purpose of reading and writing without having to specify the entire path each time. (For my purposes, the system need not support storing references themselves inside the key/value store, which could open all sorts of cans of worms like circular references that you guys probably don't want to deal with. )

It could be that I'm underestimating the ability of storing code snippets as strings and evaluating them later, but the extra conversion step is a little annoying, and I believe I have found a measurable performance impact with having to parse the string each time it's executed if I'm doing it inside a tight loop. Maybe if there was provision to cache a pre-compiled version of a string of code and save that in a variable for quick evaluation? Combining that with a key-value store like I described might be enough for me to get around much of the “directory” limitation.

Of course, I suppose an even better solution might be to have true OO-style programming on the Prime, though maybe that's a bit much to ask.

[Joseph_21sv]

(08-21-2017 07:37 PM)matthiaspaul Wrote:  

(08-20-2017 07:32 PM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  This means that the student market is the only truly relevant market anymore. As much as I'd like to see a new calculator for professionals, I acknowledge that the likely market size would be too small to make it profitable.

However, HP is already targeting multiple platforms at once (physical calculator in three revisions, PC emulator, adaptations to various smartphones), so it appears relatively easy to add yet another similar variant. A physical calculator based on the Prime, but with beeper, SD card support and (optional) support for standard batteries, and firmware-wise without Exam mode, but various additions in the software which might be unsuitable for a calculator for pupils, but are easy enough to add to not cause major development. If maintaining two similar hardware models would be cost-prohibitive, putting all the features into a single model and disable undesired features in exam mode would increase the price of the calculator only marginally. In the worst case, two different firmwares could be made available, a closed system with exam mode, and another more open one without exam mode, where experienced users could even start implementing system extensions, thereby accelerating development and adding features which would be uneconomically for HP to work on.

The market for "professionals" is certainly smaller, but many of them would also work as multiplicators, and they would also function as experienced bug-hunters and find bugs and shortcomings pupils will almost never find (unless run into them in an exam and completely ruin HP's image).

Greetings,

Matthias

A student can have a calculator with an exam mode, but never bring it to exams, thus mooting the existence of its exam mode by voluntarily never needing to invoke that mode. Requiring an exam mode to be implemented in calculators with advanced features which are aimed at secondary school students is nothing but a waffly way of "allowing" them to be admitted into secondary school level exams in several countries around the world.

[Bob Frazee]

Tim Wessman wrote in post# 10:
I think the more important question is "what is the real thing you want directories for?"

The HP50g calls them directories, the Ti89Ti calls them folders, even the Casio Prizm has folders available in their storage memory. To me, they are all one in the same, a place to organize a program that has external subroutines attached to it. You've provided the HP Prime with a huge memory, and no way to organize it. You've said that an APP is a folder, well, in my opinion, if that is the case, then when I open that APP for programming, I should see a list of subroutine names. Instead, I see the subroutine names plus the code for that subroutine. Essentially now, you've got one big program, which is absolutely no fun to edit on the calculator, especially if its over about 10k in size.

All I would like is a way that I can organize my HPPL programs (whether it be an APP with external subroutines in the APP folder, or a program with external subroutines, in a program folder). The directory structure on the HP50g and the folder structure on the Ti89Ti provide that ability, but the Prime has nothing (neither does the Ti84 series).

I don't mean this to sound harsh, but the question was asked.

[Brad Barton]

Tim, thanks for weighing in here. I think its both important for the project and fortunate for the users that you're (and HP by proxy) willing to listen. This is a touchy subject for a lot of people because obviously many of us are somewhat stuck in the past, having so thoroughly enjoyed what our favorite machines could do for us. Although some of my comments may sound a little snarky, please realize that they're intended to improve the Prime user's experience.

(08-28-2017 10:28 PM)Tim Wessman Wrote:  

(08-28-2017 12:07 PM)Morten Pors Wrote:  HP should just add the directory/file system similar to the 48-49-50 series calculators.

I would beg to differ that the "directory/file system" on the 48s was anything such.

'Directories' in the 48 are binary objects. They were not a generic file system. Nor would doing something like putting an item into the "hidden" directory work out very well if you did it wrong (wipe your memory).

In addition, ports of different rules, libraries with read only data, "directories" not working from the SD card, and similar behaviors existed. There wasn't a "generic" directory/file system on those units. It just pretended to be one from a casual look. In reality, it was a very limited system with many strange behaviors.

Technically true, however a "directory/file system" is the primary tool we used to organize and manipulate programs in the 48/49/50. This system, AND THE TOOLS AVAILABLE TO MANIPULATE IT were very useful, giving users many powerful options for programming and storage. Yes, it had many quirks, some of which were due to hardware limitations, but hopefully the more streamlined hardware available today will enable HP to avoid these quirks with the Prime.

Quote:One decision they made was the "look upwards through the directories to find something". Could you image that on a computer or phone and the havoc it would cause?

Yes, but this isn't a phone or computer. It's a calculator.

If you'd like a little more constrained system, perhaps a program command allowing us to link the program to folder(s) (or librari(es)) containing variables or functions needed in the program would suffice.

Quote:I think the more important question is "what is the real thing you want directories for?" and figure out how to make that work in a device that DOES utilize a real filesystem and generic directories like Prime.

I'd personally like to be able to generate programs and sub programs that I can arrange, call and edit in a logical manner without the computer. I don't do a LOT of programming, but already searching through a long list of programs almost requires that I'm hooked up to a computer to get a reasonable look at the list.

Moving up and down through a directory tree was much easier. However that functionality sort of went hand-in-hand with the soft keys in the older models. Having one without without the other is only half an implementation.

Quote:You can directly modify and work with a folder on the computer and drop it into the Prime copying generic data of any kind (pngs, txt, etc) and have access to them. That is something that was never possible on the 48.

I agree that the Prime has MANY advantages over the 48 (including its symbiosis with the computer version). Prime is a completely different class of machine. It doesn't necessarily follow though that we should discard the parts of the 48's functionality that made it both powerful and useful.

Quote:What we have limited is the ability to get in an browse/modify the main directory directly on the device because we do not have answers to the following questions yet.

Lets say you have access to generic data/directories in any location in the Prime. You make something called "myvar" and store it. Is that a variable? Is it a file? How should it be treated when the user types in "myvar"? Should it be cached to allow quick access? Should it be read from disk each time? What if the user modifies the binary data, or changes it to be something else?

It's going to take someone smarter than me to tell you how to deal with objects the way the 48 did. I can envision an "attribute" type of system where you tell the calculator what type of object you intend to create, but that seems horribly cumbersome and rife with programmatic errors and "gotcha"s. And I realize that this is a KEY problem that prevents you from providing all the things I've talked about above until it is solved. I'm just trying to help you see why I want these things; it's not just "because I'm used to the 48, and that's what I want" (see my comments on RPN below). These tools really are useful and would enhance the power and flexibility of the Prime.

Quote:Most of the discussion I've had with users regarding "i want directories and files" generally returns to one of these OTHER things that really aren't related to that, but a general complaint:

1. I want to be able to type in generic things and have them recognized as variables. (I agree the system is problematic in this way for this specific type of use case and needs improvement. Switching everything so all program and syntax errors are caught after executiong ala 48 though isn't an improvement. There are plenty of steps that can be taken first that will greatly improve things and you may end up liking better)

I'd like to hear more about those steps and what you have in mind, but I realize that may not be possible until release.

Quote:2. They want to have a menu system with variables accessed on the lower part of the screen. (nothing to do with directory/files, more a ui thing)

As I say above, the directory/file system goes hand in hand with soft keys at the bottom of the screen. It would be far more cumbersome to rely on a menu driven or command driven system to navigate any tree style file system. Soft keys (AND THE TOOLS REQUIRED TO MANIPULATE THEM) are really second-to-none when it comes to navigation, unless you have a QWERTY keyboard and/or a mouse. Since you've got a touch screen, possibly a touch screen tree could be useful instead, but without some of the programmatic navigation/customization tools available in the 48/49/50 OS, it may not be quite as flexible.

In the 48, navigating the tree became a part of the memory that could be controlled programmatically. As such, it allowed the 48's OS to develop into a more complete system of tools available to the user. Having had access to these tools, it's little wonder users want the same or similar tools on the Prime.

Quote:3. They want RPN equal to the 48. (Hey, i get this. Wish I could do it. The CAS probably couldn't possibly support RPN which would leave a huge gap in the implementation)

I think nearly everyone understands that RPN isn't likely to be made available on the Prime. It's a shame, but that's the reality we've had to accept in order to move forward. The good news is that HP has provided enough interesting tools and features in the Prime, that it makes it almost worth the sacrifice for many users. Plus I'm hoping to convert some of those RPN-phobes out there from TI to HP.

Quote:So I really am very interested in the discussion here to discover what the real, root desire is and how it can possibly be implemented. Unfortunately, there really isn't a simple solution that sweeps all the problems away that I've been able to see yet.

We're thankful for your interest, Tim. You're going to get a lot of us complaining about the changes in the Prime. Some of it will no doubt be hurt feelings over a favorite OS passing into obsolescence. But some of it will also be the desire to have access to the tools that we found useful in those machines.

[TravisE]

(10-17-2017 03:13 PM)Brad Barton Wrote:  Tim, thanks for weighing in here. I think its both important for the project and fortunate for the users that you're (and HP by proxy) willing to listen. This is a touchy subject for a lot of people because obviously many of us are somewhat stuck in the past, having so thoroughly enjoyed what our favorite machines could do for us. Although some of my comments may sound a little snarky, please realize that they're intended to improve the Prime user's experience.

Well said, and that's exactly how I feel. The 50g was one of the most fun and pleasurable calculators I had ever encountered, seemingly designed perfectly for the most efficient possible customization, setup, and use, once one put in the time to get to know it. I found it a very handy device for managing all sorts of data processing, much more convenient for many tasks than a desktop computer, tablet, or even phone. Almost the only remaining thing that held it back, I feel, was the unfortunate need to stick to legacy hardware emulation for the sake of software compatibility (since the maturity and solidity of the software base came at the price of it being quite dated by now).

I really want to love the Prime; it has a ton of potential, especially the hardware. But it's very difficult to adapt to something so different, something that feels much less efficient or even vastly more limited in certain ways (especially given that the calculator also has to cater to all the testing authorities, because sadly that's apparently the only way to actually sell calculators anymore). I can appreciate the challenge of designing a brand new calculator from the ground up with barely a fraction of the budget originally allotted the 48g/49g/50g (not to mention the overall development and refinement period of those calculators, as I understand, can now be measured in decades), and I'm grateful that you guys are still accepting feedback and are interested in continuing to make improvements, despite the immense amount of work left to be done. Despite my disappointments with the Prime, I realize that matching the “classic” HP calculators makes for a very high bar to have to meet.

Also, I agree with all the other points Brad made, which are probably more relevant and to the point than my long post earlier in this thread, in which I still feel like I probably went a bit overboard going off on an esoteric technical tangent.

[primer]

Hello,

(08-28-2017 10:28 PM)Tim Wessman Wrote:  I think the more important question is "what is the real thing you want directories for?"

So I really am very interested in the discussion here to discover what the real, root desire is and how it can possibly be implemented...

I would like to suggests something that differ from directory/file system.

Lets imagine something simple, it won't change anthing the way programs are stored, accessed or exectued.

If we could group programs (on program list : shift-0) into 5 or 6 "groups" or "slots". (for example, a slot to group all 3rd party programs, one for finished progs, one for in-progress, one for games, one for libs, one for math progs...)

Users could have only limited actions about slots :
- choose a name of the slot,
- change slot assignation for a programs
- choose to dismis programs display from toolbox menu. To hide library programs for example.

slots wouln't change how programs will run, slots would be just an "attribute" of the program.

to keep it simple,
- slots are not managed from CK (new dropped programs will simply come on first slot.)
- number of slot could be fixed (no slot managements, no creation or deletion...)

It's just an Idea. At least this would be enough for me
I'm trying to propose something better without requiring a huge and deep change in system.

[Arno K]

I like the Prime, it is well designed, very powerful and easy to handle but as you may already know I recently bought a 50G because I had always liked programming in RPL and the resulting programs were easily groupable in directory objects. For maths I take the prime for fun the 50G. I have written some programs for the Prime, too and the point is, in my opinion, a lack of organisation. Some programs are in my prime only to be able to look up some clever or seldomly used features (UI-programming for example), others are often needed, some are only written to have them done... nearly the same as with the 48series, but there I can save these seldomly needed programs wherever I want, still in reach but out of sight. A somewhat cumbersome solution is saving programs like that in notes, but here it is the same, missing organisation, in the Content Folder of my connectivity kit I created folders : GUI, Games, Maths/Integers etc, so there my programs are organized and quickly retrievable, but to use them they must be transferred first...
primers idea seems to be interesting, each program may have a user-editable string property, the name of the "folder" which can be edited from the programs list and can be used to sort the shown programs, selected property first.
Another idea that can be combined to this one is an "Archive" in flash that can be browsed usind the memory manager, so a full directory system does not have to be implemented.
Arno

[lschroeder1947]

HP Prime can be great for everyone!



Prime experts can program an Application Library that add major functionality to the HP Prime, such as Han's Graph3D.hpaddddir app listed above. Application Libraries like Graph3D can benefit students as well as professionals and show the possibility of what can be done.

Han's Newton's Method discussion allow us to look at porgrams such as newt2.hpprgm program listed above. Following his discussion of various techniques we can create our own programs while giving us a program that can be used by students and professionals.

Edward Shore's eqnlib Application Library gives us an application professional and students can use, plus along with his Blog shows us how to program the HP Prime. I just mentioned Han and Edward but really appreciate all the contributors and posters in this forum.

Now it is true that there are not the applications libraries of other calculators but the potential is there.

Students can begin by using the HP Prime Free - Lite (iOS) on their phone, ipad, or tablet. The CAS and HOME view will serve the majority of their needs. HOME view for calculations plus [a b/c] key for decimals, improper fractions, and mixed numerals. CAS view menus with operations such as factor and solve.

When they need the next step for courses such as Finite Math (applied algebra for management and social sciences) they can use the HP Prime Free - Lite's [Define] key to add functions such as lineptm, linept1pt1, and pivmat and CAS variables such as cpint, ira, and loan. Trig students can add the CAS Polar to Rectangular and Rectangular to Polar Define functions.

Students who were using as a tool, that discover more interest in the Prime, can buy the HP Prime Pro or HP Calculator with virtual software and start writing program collections such ArithSeries, CalcSecTan, and CalcSketch and Application Libraries such as FncIncDecConvUpDn, FncSecTanLines, and GraphPLus listed above. These programs and Application Libraries are discussed in my eBook and printed Book on the HP Prime and Algebra Fundamentals.