I personally hate to compromise, but when you've spent countless hours awake working on a model that never seems to end, I don't have the energy, motivation or drive to argue over anything. It's shitty but thats how it is.

I will start to raise money for that communist island just as soon as we get this model done! :D

As we said in first year, let's build and PLAN our commy island. we'll each have our own part of town so we don't have to compromise but still be able to live together. =D

i'll join you guys on the picket-line to fundraise. =P

ugh, i wanna go home!

I know exactly what you mean!

A guy at work always wants me to change "this" and modify "that" for the programs I've written in a software called MathCAD. It makes me very angry because he's never tried creating anything in MathCAD himself and he doesn't know anything about it, so he shouldn't have the right to complain.

Because he doesn't understand the pros and cons of MathCAD he asks me to make programs in MathCAD when it is clearly more advantageous to just do it in Excel. Furthermore he asks for the most ridiculous and insignificant changes without realizing that it requires me to redo most of my code.

On another frustrating note, lately I've been doing landing predictions for Bombardier because they upgraded their plane. They've only given me preliminary aircraft weights, but I have to do them anyway cause we don't know when we'll get the final weights. Then today, when I'm almost done and putting together the report, my boss says "oh I forgot to give you the final weights" and it turns out he's received the final weights the day after we got the preliminary ones. So I wasted like a week of work.

I'm sooo angry.

I hate MathCAD

you dont have to compromise. in fact, i think a successful planner should be able to seem like they're compromising when in fact they're doing something completely out of whack.

you need to SEEM accountable.

Tiff: MathCAD is good, if you are taught how to use it properly. Dufo didn't teach us. Don't blame the software.

You'd still need to compromise in a communist system. What you really want is a totalitarian system where you are on top. Anything else, and guess what, you are compromising again.

What are you talking about? MathCAD is the worst analysis software I've used. There are so many better alternatives out there. It's like someone shit some code, put it on the computer and out came MathCAD.
I mean, the concept is good, but the implementation is poor.

1. It is highly unstable. It crashes all the time (and not just on my computer). You don't feel safe working with it.

2. It's neat how it allows me to place equations everywhere like a writing on a pad of paper. That is also exactly where there's a problem because I end up spending so much time aligning equations and text and figures. And guess what? Next time I open the file, the equations aren't in the exact same place I left them. Guess what else? When someone else with different moniter settings opens my file, things become out of place. MathCAD support told me they reproduced my problem half a year ago but I haven't heard back from them since.

3. User interface is unintuitive. They don't know anything about ergonomics. It's stupid how I have to click on buttons to get programming keywords like for, if, while, return, etc. Typing the word "for" doesn't work. And the shortcut keys they've assigned to these buttons don't make sense at all.

4. Debugging is nonexistent. There is no debugging tool for fixing programs written in MathCAD. You also can't put in print statements to check values of the variables in your functions as the program runs.

5. They have a crappy data table. If you copy and paste data on a cell it clears out the contents of every other cell. I opt to embed Excel charts in my MathCAD files but then when there's Excel components in there MathCAD becomes even more unstable.

6. It eats up RAM like crazy.

So anyway, I'm very passionate about the crappiness of MathCAD. I take it that there's a course in Waterloo for MathCAD? I'd never take that. If I need credits I'll rather take something like Singers of Israel (yes this is a course at U of T).

MathCAD was good for the course that we had to take. Granted I don't pretend to know much about symbolic algebra programs, but it is easier to use compared to Maple or Mathematica from what I've heard. In that sense, it would have been good for *us*.

Anyways, the course was the easiest mark ever. You either got 89, 90 or 91. I can live with that.

And as for courses in Waterloo that actually teach MathCAD. I'd bet there isn't one. Was probably used by one prof who has since gone to a better place.

They probably use Maple (I vaguely recall them using that in the Math and Eng Faculties when I passed through there a very long time ago) most extensively with the oddball profs using others where they find it necessary.

Evidently, I didn't proofread the last paragraph

They probably use Maple (I vaguely recall them using that in the Math and Eng Faculties when I passed through there a very long time ago) most extensively. There might be other oddball profs using other programs where they find it necessary.

Now, i'm off to delete MathCAD from my computer. Don't think I'll ever need it again. If I do, I'll just steal it again.

MathCAD... aww.. brings back fond memories. What was the point of doing those assignments anyways? i think you'd still end up with the same mark even if you didn't do any of them! haha. oh how I miss him.

Matt the school of planning acquired web space to create a School of Planning - Urban Design Website!!
I think you'd be great for it!! they want to display student projects, put photos of the studio and promote the school... etc..
Talk to John Lewis about it.. he was looking for talented, bright young men to this for him...

I will go talk to him. :)

Thanks Fadi.