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nichyjt / pe

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Inconsistent Equation Formatting for `Graph` and `Quadratic` #3

Open nichyjt opened 1 year ago

nichyjt commented 1 year ago

Description

As a new user who is learning how to use the app and a fast typer, I would expect that the mathematical syntax for the Graph and Quadratic features to be the same.

Unfortunately,

  1. Graph requires coefficients to be suffixed with '*', while this is not necessary for Quadratic.
  2. Graph requires no padding, while Quadratic enforces a space between each term

Consider these 2 commands.

  1. Graph 1*sin(2*x+1)-1.
  2. Quadratic 5x^2 + 2x - 1

These are very different syntaxes. This is frustrating as a user as the mathematical syntax changes lower down my typing speed and force me to context switch and re-refer to the user guide, making for a bad user experience.

It would be great if the syntax was standardized and intuitive like the usual tools one would use for math, like Desmos or Matlab. This would make the product much more cohesive.

soc-pe-bot commented 1 year ago

Team's Response

Thank you for your response. We will consider implementing it in future versions.

Items for the Tester to Verify

:question: Issue response

Team chose [response.NotInScope]

Reason for disagreement: [replace this with your explanation]

## :question: Issue severity Team chose [`severity.Low`] Originally [`severity.Medium`] - [x] I disagree **Reason for disagreement:** Thank you for the response. I disagree with the team's decision on Medium -> Low. **Justification for Medium Severity** By definition, > severity.Medium : A flaw that causes **occasional inconvenience** to some users but they can continue to use the product. and > severity.Low : A flaw that is unlikely to affect normal operations of the product. Appears only in **very rare situations** and causes a minor inconvenience only. I have justified in my initial response that the change in syntax will cause context switching, typos and constant referral to the UG. Let me elaborate why this deserves a **medium severity**. The context switching & typos issue are **not a rare occurence**. Any user would face this issue **quite regularly** when moving from the `Graph` command to `Quadratic` command, vice versa. The target user will likely need to alternate between these 2 commands quite often too due to the nature of studying and math tools. This syntax difference does not break the app and users can use `BadMath` as usual, but the **problems it causes are much more than a very rare, minor inconvenience**. It will always be an issue until the user has used the app for a long time and has memorized the different syntax. Until then, it is reasonable to expect the average math student to keep making typos and tripping over the change in syntax. This is definitely an inconvenience to them that happens regularly. I hope this makes my position clearer. Thank you!