Differences between Maxima and Macsyma and GPL vs. commercial version

Dear Chris,

At first, Cliff has already replied to your message and, naturally, 
I completely agree with him. Few additional comments:

I have used Maxima in the laboratory since October 2002
(yet having not abandoned Mathematica so far). Maxima
is very easy to use and it covers almost everything that the
students need to use (such as calculus, solution of equations,
differential and integral equations, linear algebra etc.). My
students are civil engineers. I teach in two courses called 
Applied Mathematics II and III.

Yet,  feel that few more things should be done so that Maxima
can compete Mathematica and Maple. These are:

1. The possibility of preparing a laboratory work in Notebook
style (with text, mathematical results and graphics simultaneously)
and print it directly. Now this is made (as far as I am concerned)
through Windows Notepad for the Maxima session and the text
and for the graphics (in the rare case I dare use them) through the
Windows Print Screen key and, next, Wordpad or Word. (I am 
not using the direct possibility of printing graphics, since this is not 
very simple. To be sincere I have never tested to see whether 
gnuplot works in Windows.) These points have to be considerably
improved.

2. Another difficulty concerns the lack of manuals (at least 
in Greek) sufficiently simple for the students to understand. 
I am trying to work on this point (with a partial focus in Civil
Engineering).

>From the positive side Maxima has a very large number of
commands, which are gererally more than sufficient for the
students although some more commands seem to be required 
such as those for linear differential equations (with contstant 
coefficients) of high order and for simple cases of partial 
differential equations (already available in Mathematica and
Maple long ago).

The very good thing with Maxima is that these can be added
by its user, in the present case me, little by little so that an
excellent Maxima-based environment for the students can 
become available (in my case a Civil Engineering environment). 
Modifications in and several additions to the XMaxima interface
have been rather easy, but the addition of general-purpose
and Civil Engineering code is much more difficult and it requires
experience and time.

Of course, the students receive also here their free CD-ROM
with a localized version of Maxima addressing exactly to them 
and their courses in Applied Mathematics and this is appreciated 
by several of them (altough not all).

Finally, it seems that the syntax of Maxima is much more
convenient for the students (and me) than the syntax of
Mathematica; Maxima's syntax is more friendly.

Concluding, a new and modern graphical interface and
a simple manual for the students (and the instructors too) 
to be easily understood and used are the major two points not 
having permitted Maxima to lift off so far. Perhaps, both of these
difficulties will have been arranged after two or three years.

A Web page with an educational reference to Maxima is that
by Moses Glasner at the Pennsylvania State University. 

http://www.math.psu.edu/glasner/

I am unaware of other such pages. Some additional information
please?

On the other hand, Wolfram's Research policy has become
extremely hard towards their clients and this it seems it will 
continue. Therefore, as soon as the new graphical interface 
of Maxima is ready and a students' manual analogous to those
available for Mathematica (there are many such manuals even
in Greek), I feel Maxima will become very popular in students' 
laboratories too. But for the moment, unfortunately, this is not
the case (with few exceptions of course).

Finally, I can add that students need not be restricted to
simple mathematics. They have to solve (with Maxima or
Mathematica) difficult problems with complicated calculations 
which are extremely difficult (or simply impossible) to be done
by hand. This will make them understand the usefulness of
computer algebra and will permit them to get rid of some cal-
culations giving precedence to the ideas in their own science. 

These have been my comments, those of Cliff too, but in a
somewhat more extened (and "local") form.

Many thanks for your interest in Maxima! As far as I am 
concerned, I am already very satisfied with Maxima and I
work towards its improvement with respect to my local
tasks here.

Best regards from Partras,

Nikos

----- Original Messages ----- 
> --- <seberino@spawar.navy.mil> wrote:
> --- "C Y" <smustudent1@yahoo.com> wrote:

> > But we might someday take over in
> > areas like student labs and individual users, where the needs aren't so
> > severe and it's easier to write up what you need for a course.  There
> > we probably have much more appeal.
> 
> C Y
> 
> Thanks for your info.  I appreciate any and all opinions you can give.
> Assuming for a minute that students will need just basic
> calculus, basic algebra and basic arithmetic,
> Maxima is ready NOW for this market right??? 
> 
> Probably the most complicated equation students will ever work
> with is some polynomial or fraction with trig functions.
> I assume the integration, ODE and plotting engines for THESE
> guys was perfected in GPL'd Maxima years ago right???
> 
> Chris