Also, for the benefit of the students you may possibly be indoctrinating: Please realize that WRI's marketing materials (aka documentation - lol) make it seem like MMA can do anything (and so they might attempt to use MMA in all their later courses - like me - which may not be wise).
You could do much worse than teaching them SAGE, because then they would learn the Python language and its libraries, which wouldn't be a bad thing at all. On Sep 14, 6:11 pm, Hamptonio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yeah, I have used mathematica for 17 years and I've pushed it very > hard at times. 6.0 seems much buggier than previous releases, but > they added and rewrote so much that I am not that surprised. I still > think its an amazing accomplishment, and for illustrating basic ideas > in calculus I don't think anything matches it. > > I have submitted bugs to mathematica and gotten no response, so I know > what you mean there as well. > > But I am committed to using and improving sage over the long haul, > don't get me wrong. I think the superiority of the development model > will win on most fronts eventually. > > Cheers, > Marshall > > On Sep 14, 5:50 pm, Chris Chiasson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > ... wait until you actually start pushing Mathematica, it gets > > sluggish on you, produces wrong results and/or crashes, and you > > receive apathy and blame dodging instead of tech support and bug > > fixing. > > > On Sep 14, 3:31 pm, Hamptonio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Recently I started using Mathematica 6 in the computer labs of some > > > courses I teach, and I cannot help but be impressed. The new dynamic > > > commands such as Manipulate are very impressive, and are perfect for > > > teaching. Before seeing how powerful it is, I had hoped to switch > > > from using mathematica to sage in the fall of 2008. But now I am not > > > sure I can justisfy that switch or convince my colleagues it would > > > make sense. (As an aside: assume for the sake of argument that my > > > department gets mathematica for free, which is true in a certain > > > bureaucratic sense). > > > > For some sense of what mathematica can now do, check > > > out:http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/newin6/content/DynamicInt.... > > > I actually think its more impressive in person. > > > > While I would like to help remedy the gap between sage and mathematica/ > > > matlab in this respect, I am not sure how it would be done. I am > > > learning a little about wxPython, but I don't think that would work > > > through the notebook at all, unless a program was created on the > > > server for download and byte-compilation by the client. Does anyone > > > have any ideas? If javascript is a possibility, can someone recommend > > > a good reference for learning to use it for such complicated > > > purposes? Or is java an option? > > > > -Marshall --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
