Hi Dave. Nice to see a fellow Mathematica "alum". I have found the same thing with the lack of Mathematica outside of schools.
On Dec 24, 3:51 am, "Dr. David Kirkby" <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote: > Ben Woodruff wrote: > > Hi all. This is my first post to the discussions groups I've been > > following for the last 4 months. I used Sage in my first semester > > calculus class this last semester, and plan to move every class I can > > over to Sage during the next few years. Giving the students something > > they can use anywhere they go without forking over thousands of > > dollars has a huge advantage. > > Sorry I can't answer your question. I'm not a Sage user, though I've spent a > lot > of time porting Sage to Sun's Solaris operating system, so I will be able to > use > it, on what I consider is an excellent operating system. But I could not > resist > commenting on one of your points here. > > Giving students something they can use outside university is a huge plus which > teaching Sage has compared to teaching Mathematica. > > I learned Mathematica as a postgraduate researcher and used it at university > quite a bit. Then when I left university, suddenly I find few places use it. > Most places can't afford to, or insist staff use something cheaper. (At > Marconi > Optical Components I had to use Mathcad if I wanted maths software.) A hunt > for > jobs mentioning Mathematica on job sites brings up very few hits. > > Learning Mathematica is a bit like learning your way around campus - useful > while you are at university, but your might as well forget it once you leave. > In > my honest opinion, it is almost irresponsible for universities to teach > Mathematica. > > I'm not a fan of Microsoft's products (I use Sun's Solaris rather than > Microsoft > Windows most of the time). But nobody can accuse schools of being > irresponsible > teaching children Word or Excel, as those skills are wanted by employers. The > same can not be said for Mathematica. I know little about Maple or Macsyma and > accept that MATLAB is wanted by a number of employers. > > Of course there are other advantages/disadvantages to open-source software, > but > here is not the place for a open-source vs closed-source debate. > > Dave -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
