-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi,
I think Mathematica's official description is a very good example of something we should *not* emulate. The title is simply nonsensical: "the world's most powerful global computing system"? In what sense is Mathematica a "global computing system"? In computer science this is becoming a technical term designating "access to distributed mobile resources by software agents that are not tied to a specific geographical or logical network location" (think: the internet). How is Mathematica such a system? Their description paragraph does a much better job, but the title is simply hype that makes no sense. (Incidentally, "global computing environment" would be a better fit for Sage because of its distributed computing capabilities.) I like "mathematical/scientific computing system/platform/environment", with a very slight preference to "mathematical" over "scientific" and with preference to "system" or "platform" over "environment" since in my mind that restricts attention to the notebook, and Sage is more than that. Best, Alex Ted Kosan wrote: > I am in the process of putting together some marketing materials for > Sage and I need something more descriptive than just calling Sage > "math software". > > Since I started using Sage around a year ago, I have been trying to > figure out how to categorize it. I discovered Sage through this > Computer Algebra System (CAS) comparison table: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_computer_algebra_systems > > but it has been suggested on the Sage lists to not describe Sage as > simply a CAS because it is much more than this. > > The tutorial describes Sage as "free, open-source math software", but > I don't think that describing Sage as simply "math software" is > adequate either. > > Here is how Wolfram Research describes Mathematica: > > "Mathematica 6: The World's Most Powerful Global Computing Environment > > Mathematica is a complete technical computing environment that > seamlessly integrates numeric and symbolic computations, > interactive document capabilities, an advanced programming > language, and powerful connectivity." > > They describe Mathematica as a "Global Computing Environment" which I > think this is a more comprehensive description than CAS or just "math > software" for what systems like this really are, but I don't think > that this description will work very well for Sage because it does not > have the word "math" in it. I think Wolfram can use this description > because Mathematica does have the word "math" in it so that people who > read the advertisement can infer that "global" means computing + > mathematics. > > I really like the words "computing" and "environment", though, so what > about calling Sage a "Mathematics Computing Environment"? > > Ted > > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHd2tJdZTaNFFPILgRAt4AAJ9/I0XPc1v8GEgu7YFQ9xxvSszMdgCfVjKD 9uSl4HnNZbOuOaNz8hLUfEo= =0DZc -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
