On Jul 22, 7:33 am, "Dr. David Kirkby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> On Jul 22, 11:17 am, "Ondrej Certik" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
Hi Ondrej,
> > I just wanted to share why Sage is (or will be soon) useful for me.
>
> > 1) I have a program that I do for my master thesis, it's some finite
> > elements method + electronic structure calculations and my boss gave
> > me access to some solaris very fast boxes,
>
> Is that UltraSPARC or x86/x64 (i.e. AMD/Intel) based?
>
> I'd be interested what you have access to.
I could relatively painlessly build you a 64 bit self contained gcc,
binutils, shellutils, python, ATLAS, numpy 1.1.1, scipy SVN and hg if
you left me know the CPU target you want. I have to offer Sparc US
IIIi, Core2 Quad SSE or Opteron.
> > So, mabshoff -- Solaris port +1.
>
> Me too wanting that.
3.0.6 contains about five Solaris build fixes, so the list is getting
shorter. We mainly did a stabilization release, so some of the more
risky stuff was left out.
> > 2) There is a nonzero chance I'll be teaching some undergrad calculus
> > stuff in a year or two and so I was thinking which programs (if any)
> > I'd use and the constrain will probably be windows.
>
> Why should it be windows?
>
> I feel Windows has some advantages over Solaris or Linux for general
> office/home use. In particular, you don't need to be as computer savvy
> to do certain basic tasks, like install printers.
>
> But I feel Unix/Linux systems are a much better platform for
> scientific computing. If you use the principle of "best tool for the
> job" then I doubt Windows can be considered the best tool.
>
> Why encourage people to a system which seems to have dramatically
> increased in price in recent years and gets more and more bloated?
>
> When I bought my first PC, the hardware cost just over £2000 ($4000)
> and the operating system license was about £50 ($100). Now, the cost
> of the OS is a much higher percentage of the total cost.
Well, there is a vast people using Windows out there either by choice
or because they don't know about alternatives. And Sage can only
benefit from being portable. In the end it is all about bringing
mathematical OS to the people and not convincing them to switch OSes.
They will hopefully learn that Open Source is something good and high
quality, but if other people use Windows I am perfectly fine with it.
> > So, mabshoff -- Sage windows port +1.
>
> I know he is on to that.
>
> It's obvious that given the large number of windows systems, that it
> will increase Sage's popularity more than ports to Solaris, HP-UX or
> any other platform ever will. (Personally I'm more keen on Solaris
> port, but objectively one would have to say a Windows one would do
> more for Sage's popularity. And that is important.)
>
> > So the above are rather side effects of the main Sage's aim, but those
> > are things that would make my life much more easier.
>
> I just wish I'd had a decent open-source alternative to Mathematica
> when I started my MSc. Unfortunately I've used Mathematica on/off for
> the last 17-18 years, so have a lot of time spent using it. I'd rather
> not have to inflict that anyone else, so they get locked into a
> system. (I think Mathematica is a good system, just too expensive and
> proprietary).
:)
Cheers,
Michael
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