William Stein wrote: > Here is a talk I gave that was about many of the many features Magma > has that Sage doesn't have: > http://wstein.org/talks/20090609-sage_and_magma/ > > Below I'll make a few remarks just because they occurred to me. I'm > not trying to disagree with anything you wrote. > > On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Bill Hart<goodwillh...@googlemail.com> wrote: >> Disadvantages: >> * It is not as widely used (yet). > > It might be worth keeping in mind that Python has a much much wider > usage base than Mathematica and Matlab, and that Sage can be viewed as > just a "python library".
It's interesting if you do a search for Mathematica on job sites like http://www.monster.com/ and http://www.jobsite.co.uk you will find very few jobs mentioning Mathematica skills. MATLAB and Labview are quite common, but Mathematica is not. On jobsite.co.uk Python 85 MATLAB 76 Labview 20 Mathematica: 6 (but 3 are repeat jobs, one is for Wolfram) I don't believe Mathematica is used as much in industry as Wolfram Research would suggest. In my field, engineering, I've never seen any job want it, despite me seeing some pie chart from WRI that shows engineering is its biggest field of use - more than mathematics. Outside academia, I don't think there is much demand for Mathematica. >> * There is not a support line IT Services can ring up in the event of >> difficulties installing it on University systems. > > But note that there is a mailing list and irc chat room that IT > Services can get help from. But companies like software where there is professional support which they pay for. Some will not use it unless such support is available. I was dealing with an agency recently, who was critical of a large company for using free software (Wireshark, which is GPL'ed). I pointed out to him that there is simply nothing better for the task, but he did have the perception that it is free, so can't be much good. Wireshark does in fact have commercial support http://www.cacetech.com/products/sharknet.html?utm_source=Wireshark&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=sharknet&utm_content=sharknet&utm_campaign=Wireshark_Product starting at $599 for the basic package, $1199 for the premium package and going up to $17,500 for 16-25 users. Some of their developers offer support on a paid for basis, but there is plenty of free support too. > It might also be worth noting that in the entire history of the Sage > project, nobody has ever once asked online or to me personally for a > phone conversation to help them with anything related to Sage. I.e., > nobody has ever written to sage-support or me personally and said "I > would like phone support. Is there anybody here who would help?" There might be advantages to actually offing a 'premier service' with guaranteed response times, confidentiality etc. The fact that one could get the same service for no charge would not matter - it might help get Sage used in places where it is not currently used. Confidentiality could be an issue on public mailing lists. There are technical issues I'd wanted to have resolved with Wireshark, which I would have not wanted to disclose publicly, as it would have given too much information about the use it was going to be put to. Perhaps you should offer a premier service, where the discussions would be in private and not public. Just don't make it too cheap. A price of $500-$1000/year or so would seem reasonable. Make it too cheap and it will be off-putting to companies!!! > Looking at the Mathematica web site, I don't think Mathematica comes > with phone support, by the way, but I'm not 100% sure. It looks like > you have to buy an add-on service called "Premier Service". I can't > figure out how much it costs from the Mathematica website, but this > blog post (http://metcaffeination.net/weblog/2008/11/22/the-next-mathematica/) > says it costs $750/year. That's not untypical. >> * Releases happen so frequently that IT depts. cannot hope to keep up >> with installing the latest releases. > > I wonder how much more often Sage releases are than iTunes releases? > I just checked and our releases are maybe about twice as frequent as > iTunes. I'm just pointing out that Sage isn't that unusual with its > release schedule. It used to be 2 years ago though. Realistically, I think it might be worth considering an official supported version (say once 6-12 months) with which people get paid for support. Then in addition the more frequent releases. I'm not sure the best way to do it, but I do agree with Bill Hart, the frequent releases could be considered a disadvantage. >> * It does not have certification for various industrial applications. > > What does that mean? Does Mathematica or Matlab have official > industrial application certifications? If so, should we worry about > getting certification? I don't believe there is such a thing. >> * Users are expected to be developers > > What does that mean really? It doesn't seem technically meaningful to > write "Users are expected to be developers". Expected by whom? What > is a developer? > >> * No glossy printed reference manual > > Add "You can't purchase a printed reference manual". There is a > glossy nice pdf reference manual, but it's not for sale. I have > printed it out before (for an AMS meeting). We do sell a tutorial > though, and the royalties (which are nontrivial) go to the Sage > Foundation account. > >> * Few books available in shops about using Sage > > In my experience, shops do not have books about the Ma's either. The > only math software one typically finds books about at say Barnes and > Noble is "Microsoft Excel". I think I saw a Matlab for Dummies once. It's a specialised product. Shops are not going to keep such books too often. There are tons of books on Amazon for Mathematica http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=mathematica&x=0&y=0 I have quite a collection myself! MATLAB http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=matlab&x=0&y=0 and Labview. I must admit not Maple. Dave --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
