I've been spending a bit of time playing with the questions at Project Euler <http://www.projecteuler.net/>
That thing is murder on the brain. I solved the first 4 in F# as a learning exercise several months ago and I burnt out and haven't had the hobby time to return. http://www.helium.com/items/895074-comparing-matlab-and-mathematica http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-45208.html http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/05/068208 <http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/05/068208&mode=thread&tid=156> &mode=thread&tid=156 I have been led to believe that Mathematica blows all of the competition away, and these discussions tend to support that. I admire its "purity" and extensibility, but the learning curve to becoming a power user is frighteningly steep. A friend of mine was using Matlab about 10 years ago, and back then when I saw it I was shocked by how crude the interface was. A quick glance at the MathWorks <http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/learn_matlab/f0-14059 .html#f0-10672> page leaves me wondering how much it's improved because I can't find any screen shots of the latest version in action. Greg
