Talk:Jacobi's Theorem

Appalling bad manners

If by this comment a substandard quality of the whole page is meant, than this is a problem of vague constraints on how WIP template is to be used. If it is that serious, then from now on I will start building new articles in my user's page to avoid having straightforward public access. If that is not the reason, then clearly WIP should signal that the page is in an incomplete form, which includes presentation style, material coverage, structure etc. In this case, more constructive comments ought to be presented, as opposed to criticising an unfinished product knowing that is unfinished and going to be improved in the foreseeable future. --Julius (talk) 07:42, 17 February 2017 (EST)

In the words of an old mentor in the software industry: "If you haven't got time to do it right, when are you going to have time to do it over?"

I have had a similar dialogue before on this subject, where contributors have not had the motivation to seek out apply the house conventions on writing code and organising the presentations of the pages. On the other hand, many contributors, starting from new, seem to gain an instant feel for the house style, and every page they produce is practically always up to our unique high standards. To some people, it seems to be a point of pride that their own coding style is so much superior to anyone else's; perhaps their political culture is one of "rugged individualism" to a level bordering on pugnacity. To others, I would guess it is a failure to appreciate (or respect) our reasons for a high consistency of presentation of the code in which the page is written. Others yet again may not have the level of personal accomplishment to be able to learn our style in the first place. I don't know.

But the bottom line is that with all the best will in the world, and however much a contributor claims that they may be "going to tidy up soon", this rarely if ever happens, and it falls to the administration team to clean up these veritable Augean stables of frightful code, which is a tedious task we would rather not have to do. (And to the response "No, you don't *have* to do it, you could always turn your computer off and go and watch the football instead," I am afraid I have no answer and yes, you win the internets.)

Certain other wikis are equally rigorous, and even draconian, about the rules that contributors are expected to adhere to, and make every effort to encourage their effort to conform. Ours is little different in that respect. But we can't force you to adopt good manners. All we can do is ask. --prime mover (talk) 10:21, 17 February 2017 (EST)

I do not see any of my queries being answered here. That would make the whole conversation briefer and the results would come sooner. If WIP does not signal that improvements are coming, then I do not know how to put it in a different way. I would expect to the point comments coming from a knowledgable experienced person, and that is how I imagine administration of a community. State problems A, B, C, when a solution is presented, evaluate them and either state new problems or move on. Everybody has limited amount of time, so why waste it on thorough passages instead of 3-4 sentences.

I am not sure if that quote works here. It's one thing if the product works or not, and a completely different one if it can work better. Improvements over an inefficient approach from the bottom usually take more time than following the most obvious route with a few fixes afterwards. This is why Pareto's principle is so applicable. It brings most satisfactory results in shortest time possible. Also, it does not work if the time needed to accomplish something is longer than one session. Reasonable approach is to build it in segments and warn others about its trustworthiness until the project is finished. However, at the moment that seems to be unacceptable. Then I am confused how the rest of more than 200 pieces still maintain the same status.

I do not consider my coding to be superior and I am not trying to compensate for lack of something. However, there are principles which I follow. One cannot connect the dots without the dots. One cannot learn grammar of a language without learning words. One needs to have data to impose a structure upon that data. Especially when one is not an expert in that field. I am not saying that I am a beginner, but I am not a mathematician, and I learn as I write. Furthermore, the field I am currently contributing to was not covered. Hence, I have to learn, write and structurize a previously completely omitted branch while maintaining house style, mathematical rigour, relevance to the most interested mathematical audience so to make it more searchable and popular as soon as possible. Something has to suffer here. And it's a shame that after ~8 years of hard work several major branches of mathematics, taught in the first years of undergraduate maths, suffer from not being covered at all. I agree that, when it comes to cleaning up, statistics show otherwise, but as you tried to ask, I want to ask for patience. If after those two months I see that I cannot understand all those problems myself, I will ask for help. --Julius (talk) 13:21, 17 February 2017 (EST)

Since when was calculus of variations taught in the first year of undergraduate mathematics? --prime mover (talk) 15:14, 17 February 2017 (EST)

I do not think that has ever happened. Note that it was "years" and not "year", so it implies at least two. And I can tell from my experience that practical introduction to physicists happens in the third semester, which includes some rough derivations. Mathematicians study it in 5th or 6th as far as i know. If it belongs to the first or the third year is irrelevant. The main statement here is that fundamentals of mathematics should have precedence over some very specific applications, should they be mathematical or physical. If that was to point out that I am not working on pure basics, then I accept it. That comes from personal observation, that such common tools used in physics were completely absent here. Since I always wanted to learn mathematics, starting from their foundations, eventually I am planning to go over all the basics myself, patching things here and there. That is, if I don't accidentally find myself being a data point in your statistics, confirming the usual drop-out trend. --Julius (talk) 09:46, 18 February 2017 (EST)