Comment by chemotaxis
12 hours ago
> Neat, but I think it's deceptive
I think your comment is insightful, but it's also a terrible choice of words (and something we probably do too often here). I very much doubt that deception was the intent.
Sometimes, someone just reinvents the wheel (or improves on it). And if it serves to teach several thousand people about a new visualization technique, I think that's a net positive.
You are right but the author's first claim jumped to my eyes (I practice geometry) and burned them... The author seems to be just plotting the values of the implicit function y-f(x,y)...
So, good for him but some historical perspective is needed when making such sweeping claims.
Noted.
“For all the history of computational mathematical visualization, graphing equations has been done in binary mode...”
Intentional or not, the linked article opens with a comically untrue statement, that, because it is verifiably false, doesn't even escape as puffery. When I encounter this sort of grandstanding in framing (generally from junior engineers or fresh-from-school product managers), I spell out just how negatively such misstatements harm the point being made.
It's a turn-off for readers, and it's unnecessary.
"You may be used to seeing graphs like..." or "In grade school, we learned to graph like..."
would probably be more useful than dismissal of the history of visualization of implicit functions. Hopefully, next time, the author will be a bit less grandiose.
Something can be deceptive without malice.