For people who think the problem with "selling" Maxima is that it doesn't
have an instantly understandable intuitive GUI, there are several issues.
1. There are several GUIs. Have you tried them all? If so, please write up
a comparison. I have repeatedly tried to use Texmacs and given up because
it has not worked
adequately on Windows.
2. Advanced math is not going to be easy for most people, even if it is
written
in chocolate syrup on a frosted layer cake. Most students at just about
every level
of education, dislike mathematics and study it because they are forced to do
so.
(fortunately there are exceptions.) A program that is aimed at students who
hate
math will probably be useless for the rest of us. You have seen interfaces
for
idiots on many devices. You can do everything with a single button. You have
to do
everything with a single button.
3. Mathematica was successfully marketed initially, (and perhaps today,
too),
primarily on its "peacock's tail" of graphics. Does Maxima have to be
promoted
on such a basis, or should it do mathematics only?? Fortunately one does
not have
to make a choice. There seems to be a never-ending stream of people who are
primarily interested in peacock's tails for Maxima. (new GUIs, new plot
features...).
Improving the help system requires people who know math, Maxima, computing,
... and
can write lucid descriptions. It also requires a nice underlying design.
4. If you really want to make a difference in Maxima's visibility, changing
its
name, perhaps back to Macsyma, would make a big difference. Googling for
Maxima
is pretty much pointless. Try, by contrast, googling for the Vax version of
Maxima,
"vaxima" (which I implemented at Berkeley in 1978) or "macsyma".
RJF
> -----Original Message-----
> From: maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu
> [mailto:maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu] On Behalf Of Kostas Oikonomou
> Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 5:50 AM
> To: Robert Dodier
> Cc: maxima at math.utexas.edu
> Subject: Re: [Maxima] New Maxima
>
> I would like to cast a vote in favor of TeXmacs also. I
> agree that if one's only purpose is to have a "GUI" for
> Maxima, TeXmacs is heavyweight. However, most of the time I
> want to include my Maxima results in a document, and TeXmacs
> is unbeatable for that. Especially if you use it for
> writing technical documents in general.
>
> Finally, TeXmacs is under constant development. Robert, I
> don't know what version you've tried, but the stability is
> continually improving. I use TeXmacs all the time on
> Solaris (I stay at the latest version), and stability is not
> one of my complaints.
>
> Kostas
>
> Robert Dodier wrote:
> > On 10/28/08, ?iga Lenar?i? <ziga.lenarcic at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> - Notebook interface, similar to Mathematica - using
> wxmaxima for the
> >> GUI.
> >
> > Yeah, I'd like to see a notebook or live document interface.
> > TeXmacs is sort of the right idea, I guess, but it is
> overly complex,
> > and in my experience, it crashes every now and then.
> > Maybe stripping off some of the complexity would make it easier
> > to fix the bugs --- why don't you work on it.
> >
>
>
>
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