Slightly OT: student usage of Maxima vs Maple

Dotan

I am an engineering educator who has used mathematica, maple, matlab and
mathcad in different courses. I have access to all these programs for free
and student can get access to them for free while they are at the school.
However, there are two issues what happens when students leave the school.
Some employers provide access to these programs and some do not. Also, I am
also thinking about education in global sense and not every body can afford
to buy these programs on licensing cost. Even an employer provides access to
them it will be just one or two and if student did not learn that particular
package then he/she has to relearn.

Therefore, I am experimenting with two packages mainly Maxima and Scilab for
now and I would like to add Octave to the mix. Here is a complete course
that is based upon these two packages I have taught in the past.

http://www.eng.ysu.edu/~jalam/engr6924s07

It needs some polishing infact lot of polishing but it will give you an idea
of what is possible of these packages. You are welcome to look around and I
will be happy to get your feed back. I think most of the problems we
encounter in engineering computation can be solved using with these
pacakages. In fact I think Maxima is a perfect engineering calculator. It
extends all the functionality of an existing calculator and throws in
algebraic manipulation of matrices and integration and differentiation and
solution of diff equations as a bonus.

Let me know what you think.

Javed Alam

jalam1001 at gmail.com

On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 5:39 AM, Alasdair McAndrew <amca01 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The last major comparison of CAS's was done in 1999.  Since the range of
> problems solvable by a modern CAS is vast, I think you should simply compare
> Maple and Maxima for your own use - mechanical engineering education.  I for
> one would be delighted in your findings.  I have access to Maple, but use it
> myself only rarely these days.
>
> cheers,
> Alasdair
>
>
> On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 7:14 PM, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> As a second-year mechanical engineering student, I have only
>> superficially examined Maxima for my needs. I find that wxMaxima meets
>> most of my current needs, but my future nneeds I do not yet know.
>> Today, the folks at Maple set up shop in my university and are selling
>> one-year student licenses of Maple for the equivalent of $15 USD. I
>> bought one so that I could use both programs for one year and compare
>> their usage.
>>
>> I intend to solve my problems with both programs as often as I can, so
>> that I can know them both. However, unfamiliar with mathematical
>> programs in general, what features/properties should I pay special
>> attention to? What are the known advantages and disadvantages of each?
>> While in principal I prefer open source software (I use Kubuntu Linux
>> OS), I do believe in using the best tool for the job. I'm not looking
>> for an open-source vs closed source argument, but rather personal
>> comparisons of the programs regardless of price or license.
>>
>> I hope that this does not turn into a flame war, but it seems to me
>> that the maxima list is much less willing to flame honest this-vs-that
>> questions than, say, the debian list :) Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Dotan Cohen
>>
>> http://what-is-what.com
>> http://gibberish.co.il
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>>
>> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
>> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
>>
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