On Dec 23, 2007 12:05 AM, William Stein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Dec 21, 2007 6:54 PM, Ted Kosan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > William wrote: > > > > > MISSION STATEMENT: Provide as soon as possible a viable free > > > open source alternative to Maple, Mathematica, Magma, and Matlab. > > > > When I read this mission statement, what doesn't come to mind is > > trying to convince people who are currently using these applications > > to switch to SAGE. My thought is that most users of these > > applications are perfectly happy with them. > > You're right. At the beginning of Sage I worried a lot about converting > existing users and it is frustrating and pointless, especially given how > many potential new users there are. I went to several major bookstores > during the last few days as part of my vacation and searched for any > books that had anything to do with math software -- there was exactly > one in all the bookstores, which was some "Absolute Beginner's > Guide to Matlab." I think "mathematics software" is a market that in > some sense hasn't even begun. I'm not talking here about the existence > of books -- but about books one actually finds on an everyday basis in > bookstores in America... > > My main goal is to at least give current users who *wish* > they could use free open source alternatives an alternative. 3 years > ago I really wanted an alternative to the Ma*'s, even if it is a lot > more work to use, and there wasn't one; there wasn't anything that > was even close. > > > The way I view this mission statement is the same way the Ford Model T > > was a less expensive alternative to expensive American automobiles and > > the way the original Volkswagen "People's car" Beetle was a less > > expensive alternative to expensive German automobiles. Both of these > > automobiles were designed to allow the millions of people at that time > > who could not afford an automobile at all to finally afford one. The > > Beetle still holds the record for the highest production numbers for a > > single model, and the Model T holds second place. With this analogy, > > the M's will get you there in luxury but SAGE will get you there too. > > What I like about SAGE is it has the potential to allow orders of > > magnitude more people to get "there" than has been possible before. > > Yes, I agree. > > > Here is a pie chart I created a while ago which shows this concept > > graphically: > > > > http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/tkosan/misc/sage_potential_target_audience.png > > > > It is my opinion that most of the people in the purple part of the pie > > chart will be notebook users. > > I thought that chart was crazy until a few days ago when I visited a friend > of my wife who lives in Phoenix who teaches high school and community > college mathematics (he is a Russian with a masters from U of A). > The world of "math computation" for them is whatever > a TI-83 calculator can do -- seriously. And when we talked about > Sage, he immediately thought of how useful it could be -- as a web service -- > in the context of the classes he teaches.
It's all about calculus. I am willing to make a bet that 90% of Sage users will only need calculus. So it ought to work really, really well. It's still a long way though. Ondrej --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
