Survey: How do you use Mathematica? (Owen Densmore)

[Goeres Ross P Contr AFOTEC/AS]

[snip]
I'm thinking of diving into Mathematica, and was wondering if any of us
Friam-ers use Mathematica and if so, how .. i.e. in what context?

Also, if you are using a different symbolic mathematical system, I'd
like to know about it as well .. what you're using and how, as above.

In the open source world, gnuplot certainly is a wonderful tool, but as
far as I know, there is no companion symbolic system.

        -- Owen
[snip]

    I used to use Mathematica, but dumped it in favor of Maple
(www.maplesoft.com a division of Waterloo Software).  Maple has been able to
deliver useful results I just couldn't seem to get from Mathematica (I
didn't much care for the interface so there may be some "cockpit error"
here).  The Maple newsgroups and e-mail lists have always been quite helpful
for me.  Another subtle point is one feels one has a "complete" package
right out of the box; with other packages it seems I was constantly buying
"just one more toolkit" to add a bit more capability/functionality than I
had originally anticipated.

    Because it's also a (more-or-less) general purpose programming language,
I've found it useful for quite a wide variety of applications: graphics,
number theory, signal processing, statistical analysis, astronomy, modeling
and simulation, and so forth.  For performance bottlenecks, Maple can
communicate via other programming languages and environments (or called from
within other programs).

    As far as open-source efforts:
http://www.nag.co.uk/symbolic_software.asp
and its follow-on: http://www.nongnu.org/axiom/
A bit about SciLab: http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2002/papers/1355.pdf
and, of course, more links via a google search.  I tried a few, but stuck
with Maple (the student/faculty price is quite reasonable and capable).  A
couple of R&D places I worked had enterprise licenses for Maple so I could
use the same environment at home and work.

Hope this helps,
--Ross
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Ross P. Goeres, Information Assurance Effector
MacAulay Brown contractor for AFOTEC/AS
Phone: [phone]; Fax: [phone]
[hidden email]
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