Hi,
About the problems related with GUI and Interface, have you probed
TeXmacs + Maxima (I have probed with my students and seems pretty
friendly to them). This doesnt solve 2, but you can export postscript
graphics and embeded them in a TeXmacs interactive notebook (they can be
scaled later).
If your students doenst have Linux installed you can give them a Live CD
which include TeXmacs + Maxima (like Quantian). So they can use the
software without major technical knowledges about
configuration/instalation of Linux and in any machine they want (with
CD-ROM of course ;-) ). This is the idea that we are promoting in my
University.
Cheers,
Offray
On Fri, 2003-10-17 at 12:11, Janos Blazi wrote:
> Am Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:45:14 -0400 hat Stavros Macrakis
> <stavros.macrakis@verizon.net> geschrieben:
>
> >> I have this work sheet (I teach at a high school):
> >
> > Great to see Maxima being used in a high school!
>
> Thank you very much for your response.
> I started using Maxima but now I am loosing my courage a bit as there seem
> to be serious obstacles.
> I mean the following points:
>
> 1) No modern GUI.
> 2) Problem with carrying out calculations in floating point.
> 3)* Problem with plot2d: I do not know how I can scale graphics output,
> I do not know, how I can draw curves with x-scale and y-scale being
> equal (that is, in "isometric mode", what you get in Maple pressing
> the "1:1" button or in MuPad specifying "Scaling=Constraint").
> 4)* I do not know how to prettyprint a session with the graphics being
> embedded into the output (using the fonts size I prefer).
> 5) I do not know how to draw points for example and how to plot several
> plots at once (you can do this in Maple and in MuPad). I do not know
> how to plot points, for example.
>
> I could do without 1), 2) and 5) but I cannot do without 3)* and 4)*. So
> at this state of play, Maxima can be used at high school, but Maple or
> MuPad are definitely preferable if you have the money (which we hav e not).