Your comment on R prompts me to mention another system for
data analysis and graphics which I've used, and which is
mature, actively developed, and very well supported: it is
called ROOT, and it is being developed at CERN (root.cern.ch).
ROOT has particularly good plotting abilities, in that all
the graphs (2d or 3d) it produces are modifiable by the user
after they are made via a very sophisticated graphical
editor "built-into" each plot.
For example, axis labels, fonts, curve colors, surface
styles, can be changed interactively.
I am not aware of any other public-domain data analysis
system that has these graphics capabilities. There is work
in R to add a GUI to it, but, as far as I know, it is
nowhere near where ROOT is right now.
I like all the work that is being done with Maxima and
Gnuplot, but an interface to ROOT may be worth looking into.
Kostas
Robert Dodier wrote:
> Well, at this point I like the R statistical system for strictly
> numerical computations (it subsumes the capabilities of Octave
> in this respect and then has all the statistical stuff, and better
> graphics). For numerics + symbolics, I hope eventually Maxima
> will be the answer. Recently (last year or two) Maxima's
> numerical capabilities have expanded a lot, but coverage is
> patchy. But we are making good progress.