Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 February 4

= February 4 =

A puzzling statement
Hi there. I need a portion of this fortran90 code but there are simple subroutines there where the comments puzzle me. Here are a few examples:

subroutine design_00_001_3d ( x ) DESIGN_00_001_3D returns a 0-design of 1 point in 3D. subroutine design_04_014_3d ( x ) DESIGN_04_014_3D returns a 4-design of 14 points in 3D.

and so on. The package itself is called: sphere_design_rule. What kind of 0-design or 4-design of 14 points is it, etc.? There are many similar routines in there. I understand the only operation there is to reshuffle some arrays. Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 00:54, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Have you looked at the description on the associated HTML page? We have a spherical design article which might be relevant. A search for "Hardin (and) Sloane" may also yield some related material. (I didn't know what a snub cube was until today.)  I'll admit that the concepts are beyond my skill set, but it appears that each function returns a set of vertices that provide sphere approximations of increasing complexity and accuracy. Kind of like a circle could be approximated by regular polygons. You might be able to get a better answer from the math desk. --  Tom N  talk/contrib 03:15, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Roughly speaking, this program represents a giant look-up table embodied as Fortran-90 code. It does not compute any of these coordinates - it simply returns constant pre-computed values.  These constants may be useful for certain calculations that can be geometrically interpreted as the evaluation of polynomial integrals on a sphere.  If you don't need those constants ... then don't use them!  The author found those constants useful for some geometry and applied mathematical work.  He seems to be interested in automated tesselations and has written on that subject, among many other topics.  Some people do that sort of thing recreationally - heck, on the flight home from my last vacation, I reimplemented the Voronoi algorithm for no reason!  And so it seems that this user has done even more complicated math, for fun and profit, and made his code available to all of us.  Nimur (talk) 03:31, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you guys. I did not read the introduction at the page Tom N. provided link to, I simply skipped that which I consider a fault, however I went down the file and found a number of routines that do integration and they use these routines that are called T-Design. With all the comments, which I appreciate, it is getting a bit more clear but still I wonder why those sets of numbers which are probably zeroes of some polynomials for Gaussian integration are reshuffled. The source book is out of print now and it is impossible to read it unless one goes to a university library. Anyhow, I will keep thinking about it. Thanks. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 19:11, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

How often does Microsoft release a new computer program
Just Wondering. Venustar84 (talk) 17:10, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, new versions of products or entirely new products are mostly released with a new version of Windows. The newest one will be released some time in the near future, the last one in 2012, then 2009, 2007, 2005, 2001, 2000, etc., so we can assume an average time of ~3-4 years.  Konveyor   Belt   17:29, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It's far more frequent than that. Microsoft is also a game publisher, and many of those games are released on PC. Since any application is a "computer program", than the release software far more frequently than 3-4 years.  Probably monthly if not weekly.  See List_of_Microsoft_software_applications for a brief overview.  Venustar84, was there a more specific meaning of Computer program that you meant? Mingmingla (talk) 20:58, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Microsoft software applications is what I'm talking about. Venustar84 (talk) 00:56, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The above answers are assuming that you don't think of updates to previously released programs as "new". Dismas |(talk) 11:33, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Linking Word 2013 documents in Excel 2013 workbooks
If I want to make a list of items in an Excel workbook that each have their own Word document is there a way for me to place a clickable link within an Excel workbook? I'm not talking about an offline website—which I do not want—but rather just being able to open the Word document with the click of a button from the Excel workbook. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 15 Shevat 5775 20:48, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Insert → Hyperlink → Browse to the desired file → OK. Remember, if you move any of those files, then the link is broken. --  Gadget850talk 21:52, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, cool. Does it work within OneDrive though? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 15 Shevat 5775 22:19, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * If it is set as a drive visible in File Explorer. --  Gadget850talk 23:10, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * It's definitely visible, but Excel doesn't seem to want to do it. It works just fine linking a Word entry to Excel, but not the other way around.... Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 15 Shevat 5775 23:58, 4 February 2015 (UTC)