Hello,
I have been looking at Maxima and Axiom. I've tried them and looked at
some tutorials and I was hoping that someone here could comment on the
relative pros and cons of the two. Let me tell you what I have so far:
* I'd like to add an open source CAS to my toolkit. Maxima and Axiom
simply appear to be the popular ones. My needs are generally simple:
basic calculus and algebra. An optional GUI and plots are much welcome.
* I like that Maxima has a nice GUI (wxMaxima), it has plots, and a more
active mailing list.
* I am not crazy about the way either Maxima or Axiom do functions. I
think that implementing the Newton-Raphson method should work more or
less like this:
f(x) := x^2 + x - 2
df(x):= D( f(x),x )
nr(x):= x - f(x)/df(x)
nr(0.7)
for i = 1,10
nr(%)
end
Axiom and Maxima both require me to do something ugly like:
Axiom: function(x-f/d,'nr,'x)
Maxima: nr(t) := subst(t,x,x-f/diff(f,x));
I would be grateful if anyone could share additional thoughts on Maxima
vs Axiom. Or maybe you you know of a CAS that fits my wants that I have
overlooked.
Thanks.
Daniel.
--
I'm not overweight, I'm undertall.