Hello,
I like this one as a metaphor of my own opinion
http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2006nl/august/specialist.htm
"
Have a Generalist as Your Primary Doctor
Most people have a primary care physician, but 20 to 25 % use a
specialist for primary care services. If you allow the specialist to
take over your general care you are putting yourself at risk. Care of
your general health is outside the expertise of a specialist?they rarely
have the whole picture in mind.
Most people come to their doctor with multiple problems, such as clogged
arteries, aching joints, sluggish bowels, and blubbering fat?not just
one isolated ailment. It makes sense that a doctor with an
all-encompassing view of your conditions?a generalist?should make the
initial assessment of your condition. (Of course, the well-informed
family-practice, general-practice or internal medicine doctor will
quickly conclude that these are all problems of diet and lifestyle?and
immediately prescribe a plant-food based diet and an exercise program.)
Specialization often leads to narrow thinking. Have you heard the
saying that, ?If all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look
like a nail.? This is one reason that women who have a gynecologist for
their general doctor have a much greater chance of having a
hysterectomy. To many gynecologists, headaches, backaches, bellyaches,
depression, painful intercourse, and fatigue are ?female problems? best
treated by removal of the ?useless uterus.?
"
Jokes appart, I don't see Maxima only as a program for symbolic
computation, the same way as octave is a program for numerical
computation, or R for data analysis. I like (and this is my modest
opinion) to define Maxima as a program for mathematics.
That said, in my case, when I need some extra statistical capabilities,
I switch to R. But this is not a problem for me, and once the job is
finished, I come back home, to my 'generalist doctor'.
Keith, sorry for the quoting above, but somehow it reflects my opinion
on Maxima.
Best wishes.
El vie, 01-12-2006 a las 10:27 +0100, Keith Weinman escribi?:
> Re: Maxima and LAPACK issues
>
> 1) Why is this an issue - Numerical computation of Eigensystems etc is
> allready done fairly well with ARPACK etc etc.
> 2) Maxima should concentrate on Symbolic computations, equation
> manipulation and reduction, tensor forms, etc etc - it is, after all,
> a CAS.
> 3) If you folks really want to support numerical computations it makes
> more sense to improve interfaces to existing libs etc
> under tools such as Texmacs etc etc. If I need to compute
> numerics then I will go first to an established library - I will not use
> Maxima
> for any solid number crunching exercise - this is allmost
> cetainly what maxima is not intended for. And since I could not see
> anybody
> writing Lisp solver for large systems of algebraic equations
> (due to better design of other languages in this respect) the point of
> implementing
> numerical solvers (even for small systems) in Maxima seems rather
> pointless apart from being a nice programming exercise.
>
> I really think that it is more useful to concentrate on getting the
> intended functionality in Maxima correct and investing effort there.
> What is currently
> in CVS is not bug free and I would hate to see a very usefull tool
> stagnate because its caretakers have extended the functionality of
> Maxima without having the resources and manpower to
> effective manage and maintain what is allready existing. Without wishing
> to be rude it is better to be a master of a small area than a very poor
> global generalist.
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> Maxima at math.utexas.edu
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--
Mario Rodriguez Riotorto
www.biomates.net