Argument in favor of Maxima vs mathematica / maple

On 1/3/07, Nicolas Pettiaux <nicolas.pettiaux at ael.be> wrote:
> ...he answered that the language underlying
> maxima was "the old LISP" while maple and mathematica were developped
> using more modern technologies, hence, more powerful or at least
> valuable for a student to learn

If Mathematica and Maple gave you access to the underlying
implementation, I can see how that would be an argument.  But their
implmentations are, as far as I know, completely opaque to the user,
so I don't see how it matters.  Perhaps your colleague is thinking
about the use of packages *written in the Mathematica language
itself*, where there is arguably some advantage.

Maxima was originally written in MacLisp, and does not take advantage
of Common Lisp in many ways, but at least you do have access to source
code, obscure and messy as it may be.

               -s