On Oct 3, 6:49 am, lutusp <lut...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello all. I have completed my Sage tutorial, located at: > > http://arachnoid.com/sage
> I am more than open to comments and criticism -- I would like to edit > and tune these page while they're fresh in my mind. Really nice work on this tutorial series. The level of detail is great, and the graphics are beautiful. The only real criticism I have is that I think the introductory essay and the rest of the tutorial can--and probably should--stand on their own. Suppose I've already downloaded Sage and I'm looking to learn the basics. Then there's no reason to sell me on the virtues of its philosophy for 2000 words before getting started. The tutorial material is among the best of any I've seen. In my opinion, the rhetoric is not. I don't think making an extended analogy between Linux vs Windows and Sage vs Mathematica is the strongest argument to make for Sage. It is likely to speak to some of the potential audience of Sage, but as likely to turn others off. I can imagine many scientists and mathematicians who prefer Windows (or OS X) to Linux, but who should still prefer Sage over proprietary mathematics software. Personally, I enjoy streaming a TV show from a network website on my laptop from time to time when I got home from work, which I've found is easy to do on OS X, and non-trivial on Ubuntu. Nevertheless, I think my scholarly work should not be based on proprietary black box algorithms, and that I should be able to publish it in a form that others can read and use without proprietary software. And when I make improvements to code, I'd like to be able to contribute them to the scientific community without enriching some particular vendor. And I'd like to be able to keep running the calculations I've worked on even if I find myself without an institutional Mathematica or Matlab license someday. Anyway, I don't mean to belabor the introductory essay, just to say that I think it ought to be published separately from the tutorial. Regards, Jason Merrill --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
