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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
