Sage as opposed to magma, maple, mathematica

[littleplatonian]

http://www.sagemath.org/ I was wondering if anyone here was familiar with sage...

 

[n72.75]

Never heard of it. I've used maple for a number of years though.

 

[Jarvitä]

I've tried it for a while. The functionality is there, but as far as usability goes, it doesn't even begin to compare to Mathematica, or even less complex software like Maxima. Overall, I've been shopping for an adequate Free/open source MATLAB/Mathematica replacement for a few years now, and there's just nothing that compares. Octave is a very good approximation of MATLAB's base functionality and even offers some improvements on it, but is useless without all the domain-specific tools MATLAB ships with, unless you'd like to implement them on your own. Maxima comes close (but not close enough) to Mathematica's symbolic analytical capabilities, and SciPy is a good numerical engine to implement your own CAS on. A lot of close competition, but there's just nothing comparable to the scale and completeness of those two.

 

[Manichean]

[...] and SciPy is a good numerical engine to implement your own CAS on.

There's SymPy as well for symbolic mathematics.

 

[Arrowstar]

When it comes to most computational software packages (including those mentioned above), Open Source can't compete with the big names. I've looked for alternatives to MATLAB, for example, and nothing gets even close to meeting my needs. The problem is one of sheer functionality: there's no way an open source dev team working in their spare time is going to be able to duplicate (in a reasonable amount of time) what the heavyweights in the field have pulled off. It's a valiant effort, but unless you just need basic MATLAB-like functionality (for example), you're going to end up paying for the expensive license here.

 

[littleplatonian]

Microsoft is getting involved...

When it comes to most computational software packages (including those mentioned above), Open Source can't compete with the big names. I've looked for alternatives to MATLAB, for example, and nothing gets even close to meeting my needs. The problem is one of sheer functionality: there's no way an open source dev team working in their spare time is going to be able to duplicate (in a reasonable amount of time) what the heavyweights in the field have pulled off. It's a valiant effort, but unless you just need basic MATLAB-like functionality (for example), you're going to end up paying for the expensive license here.

As of now you have to vm a Sage appliance to get it to run on the Windows platform. But Microsoft has given a huge grant to the developer to get it running natively on the windows platform. This will be interesting to watch over time. As it stands Sage is almost two full releases behind its original release schedule. It is currently at 4.8 and intended to be at 6.0 by now. The feature set they're shooting for is worth waiting for. The main reason for this has been that the developer is pursuing another line of study and began development of Sage to accomplish it. In the mean time I'll have time to look at what's already out there and wait and see.

 

[Jarvitä]

As of now you have to vm a Sage appliance to get it to run on the Windows platform. But Microsoft has given a huge grant to the developer to get it running natively on the windows platform.

If I remember correctly, the plan is to port it to Cygwin, which is (in my opinion) even worse than running it in a vm, if you absolutely must use windows.

The problem with porting Sage is that it's basically nothing but duct-tape holding together a dozen math/numerical/scientific utilities, some of them very POSIX-specific.

 

[littleplatonian]

I pity the fool...

If I remember correctly, the plan is to port it to Cygwin, which is (in my opinion) even worse than running it in a vm, if you absolutely must use windows.

The problem with porting Sage is that it's basically nothing but duct-tape holding together a dozen math/numerical/scientific utilities, some of them very POSIX-specific.

The A-Team made good use of duct-tape in just about every episode. I'll never forget that crazy pilot Murdoch either. :lol: An eclectic approach to software is best I guess.

 

[n72.75]

Nothing really beats MATLAB with the Maple, symbolic toolbox. MATLAB licenses are however, not cheep.