Has anyone tried MuPAD



Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> writes:

> I just downloaded a version of MuPAD 2.0.  The interface
> and various other things are worth examining, primarily
> because this system was designed AFTER Maple and Mathematica.
> I tried it on a Sun/Solaris system.
> 
> I do not see any way that it is "breaking new ground"
> but it (for example) has a simpler window, a nice font
> for documentation, and at least a chance of commiting
> errors just to be compatible with previous mistakes.
> 
> It seems to be a vague imitation of the Maple interface language.
> 
> Does anyone else have a copy?  What do you think?

I have a copy.  I like it.

I don't know how Mathematica and Maple handle it, but MuPAD has a
different strategy than Maxima for dealing with insufficient
information; while Maxima will ask the user, MuPAD will consider all
possibilities and return a piecewise defined function.
I have no idea which is better.

Other than that, really, I can't say much in comparing it to other
CASs.  I have little or no experience with CASs other than Maxima and
MuPAD. (I worked briefly on Mathematica, an experience from which I am
still trying to recover, and not at all with Maple, although I have
read enough about it to recognize the similarities between MuPAD and
Maple.  I had always assumed the similarities were there to make it
easy for users to migrate.)

Jay