Re: Mathematica and Windows
Hi Yigal, All,
On Tue, 2005-12-20 at 19:38, Yigal Weinstein wrote:
> I am thankful that many of you have opinions that are thought out. I
> am an end user primarily. It is important to state that my goal is to
> program, publish, and think on general relativity, optics, quantum
> mechanics and in general on physics and not about if a program will
> work or not work for me. I do not want to spend hours and what
> usually amount to days if not weeks, or months (as it has taken
> me) trying to program in features, modules etc.. Even in our own
> mail group consider the thread:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-science/2005/11/threads.html : Tool for
> symbolic integration/derivation ? Ended with many posts outright
> saying Mathematica or Maple were superior to anything GNU has to
> offer.
Maybe "GiNaC" from http://www.ginac.de/ can help you.
It is C++-library for some kind of symbolic math you can call from
C++-programs for special purpose.
In addition it comes with a shell like front-end 'ginsh'.
What I did during my studying in physics, I made similar experience
and ended in the *NIX philosophy "for any purpose a separate program
which is easy to maintain". In this case, a plot program I feel
comfortable with and other programs doing calculations. Data exchange
via files.
>
> While many specialized CAS that were mentioned by previous responses
> are great for theoretical mathematicians I am a physicist. You could
> say "go program it yourself" but to me this seams incredibly
> unrealistic. To me, and this is my overarching point, GNU fails to
> provide an end product that parallels Mathematica, or Maple and with
> the Linux community's resources this should not be. What are these
> proprietary software? They are software that are friendly, good
> looking, and useful to most users who use them. Is this a problem?
> Is this an aspect of software that Linux developers want to do away
> with? I can't imagine it is.
>
My experience some years ago with Mathematica and Maple were that the
front-ends have a big focus in proprietary SW espacially for the Windows
and MAC world. In UNIX world the front-end comes often last.
> You say, "then go buy the proprietary software if you need it so
> badly". My objection to this analysis is the completely realizable
> GNU CAS with more features and better presentation than either of
> these two CAS. Why should I believe that this is possible? Because
> there is an incredible amount of talent in the Linux community and
> there are so many of us. The fact that this and other software is not
> available though - almost on a global scale of GNU software - make me
> beg the question, "Why isn't there nice looking, well behaved, feature
> rich scientific software that works upon installation in the Linux
> community?".
Apart from that, xmaxima, is a reasonable frontend to maxima.
>
> I am willing to pay a great deal of time - and have done so already -
> for intellectual freedom in software but it does not have to be this
> way and I don't understand why it is. I am simply asking people to
> work together and make something that will blow Mathematica and other
> proprietary software suites away not just in intellectual freedom but
> in ease of use, and a features. I think Open Office has done this but
> then again they are not just for Linux as their software works on all
> OSs.
>
> Debian and Linux should be better than other OSs i.e. Mac. and XP
> because of their philosophy in almost every area and I do not see
> this. Mathematica and Maple are examples of what I do not see.
>
>
Kind Regards,
Thomas
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