RPL second impressions (HP 28)

[pier4r]

(07-04-2018 10:10 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  That's the decades-long problem I've always resented: people will constantly produce this or that library, or this or that utilities ROM, or this or that utilities LEX files and so on and so forth, which are then published and/or made available for free or nearly so, intended to be used in people's own programs and such. So far so good.

Regrettably, most people either don't use them in actual, non-trivial programs or, if they do, they don't make them publicly available so in the end the community rarely gets full-fledged, useful programs but tons upon tons of routines, libraries, utilities, etc., apparently because people love to write libraries and utilities (it's like solving a puzzle or a challenge) but complex, useful programs not so much.

See for example the HP41 series' PPC ROM. Apart from the demonstration examples in its big manual I've very rarely seen "in print" any real application programs calling its functions as part of the program's code, nor have I ever called them from my 41C programs either.

Well writing libraries is always fun and they are used at least once (I hope), during the tests of those libraries. For the programs you are talking to, I am not sure I follow you.

While sharing a library or a function that can be applied to different problems is somehow useful, as it can be reused, sharing a program (or a solution) has a bit different scope. I like shared solution, even only to learn why this or that works how it works, but I can understand that people say "well, this solution may be interesting only to me, so I don't see the need to share it and make an effort in a post online". It is a pity, as someone else may find their effort instructive, but it happens often.

I, for one, share my solutions mostly on my open git repository that is not immediately reachable as it is one of the N git repos online. When I do some more interesting research I try to combine it in a sort of an article / post. Trying to cover the results (and on the way to get them) even just for myself of the future. As I will be able to use the results in a faster way if I organize them in an article.

Unfortunately more often than not I have little time so either I tinker a bit more or a write an article. Often I do the former instead of the more useful (as it pays off over time) latter part. Plus sometimes I want to read (for example the VA pdfs and what not) or do other tasks and so the time is gone.