Linux Journal writeup



On 7/14/2011 12:59 PM, Rupert Swarbrick wrote:
> Raymond Toy<toy.raymond at gmail.com>  writes:
>> I especially like the comment about Sage using Python, "a real
>> programming language".  As if any of the other programming languages are
>> less real than Python.
> Well, in the author's defence, I wouldn't want to try to engineer a
> large application with Maxima's scoping rules. That said, there's this
> other language kicking about. 'Lisp', I think it was called...
>
> Rupert
>
>
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> Maxima at math.utexas.edu
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Well, we haven't discussed Sage here for a while..  But there are some 
nasty comments about Sage collecting after the Linux journal on Maxima.  
I didn't know there were malcontents who based their criticisms of Sage 
on the way it was packaged for Linux, but there you go.

A problem with Sage is that its usual proponents are advocates of a 
single-world-view (via python), a view
which is based on their not knowing much about any other world view.

Like naturally, if you find a bug in Maxima, why not rewrite the system 
in Python?

It is amusing to see their blurbs claiming they want to be a viable 
alternative to Maple, Mathematica ...
and then realize that the way they do that is to call Maxima.

(Of course they could also call some other programs;  I suspect that if 
anyone cared, those other
programs could be called from Maxima.)

RJF