(Sent from my iPhone.)
On Dec 22, 2007, at 5:31 PM, "Ondrej Certik" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 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. I agree. That's one reason I'm so happy you are now a sage developer! Probably 2d and 3d visualization are also at least as important as calculus to the target audience we are talking about. Linear algebra and numerical solving is also extremely important... (thanks mike and robertwb for implementing symbolic matrices for 2.9.1!!!!) Ted, what functionality do you see as being most important for the "scientific calculator" target audience you have in your pie chart? > > > 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/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
