Daniel,
I am a relative newcomer to CAS programs, but after looking at several of
them, including Euler, Maxima, and Sage, I have chosen Maxima (actually,
wxMaxima) in the free/open category. Sage is intriguing and shows great
promise (and incorporates Maxima), but for the moment, I find wxMaxima
easier to use. The only software I have tried that has more features and
that directly generates symbolic math is Mathematica, which is in the
commercial category and is rather expensive.
Best regards,
Rudy
On Sat, 26 Nov 2011, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> 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.
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>
>
>