Re: Potential new project: Calculator (scientific, graphing,statistical)

[Bill Tihen <bill@tasis.ch>]

>     The case could easily be made for one to set up the table in
>question not having depth and planar surface area at depth (the info
>most used to calculate volume), but rather as the results of said
>calculations (ie. lake volume calculated from the given depth to the
>bottom of the lake, for instance). The point is moot as I also need the
>planar surface area for other calculations. :)
>

Now we are beyond my researching and anyalysis experience.  But I was
worried that it would be easy to get more complicated.

Spreadsheets are good at messaging data, but they are very limited in their
ability to graph data.  Often measurements are taken at non-regular
intervals however, spreadsheets won't usually graph data at irregular
intervals.  I have also had little success with proper graphing of error
bars overlaid on best fits.

>     Alternatively, Spreadsheets are very flexible, to the point where
>they don't directly have the means to validate and verify data (Remember

These sound good, but I worry that we will then make the project
impossible.  I think something good as a little graphing calculator fullfil
the needs of many and perhaps that is on a more imaginable scale than an
application that scales well to real research.  I would of course love the
perfect analysis tool, but I would hate to kill a perfectly good project by
being over ambitious.

>
>- scalable: > not too big for small needs, not too weak for great needs
>- flexible: > ability to carry out individual fine calculations &
>              manipulations
>- extensible: able to add new graph and analysis types, and build new
>              types from existing types
>- usable:   > adaptable to different tasks, flexibility to accept
>              data from many sources
>- intuitive > graphical representation / participation paradigm rather
>              than process-based paradigm
>            > good docs
>- auditable > able to see previous analyses
>

Bill