On Nov 12, 8:46 am, "Dr. David Kirkby" <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote: > On 11/12/10 04:13 PM, rjf wrote: ..... > > > It seems to me the obvious first point for "Why Sage" is > > that Sage provides access to mathematical software. > > Well, there are lots of mathematical software too.
True, but at least it gets you in the right ball park. Searching for "open source" on google gets 66 million hits. searching for "mathematical software" get 0.25 million. > > > I think you have a big bias against python and towards lisp. My view is that there has been excessive boosterism for Python, asserting that it is the solution to some important issues in building a system that is supposed to displace Mathematica, Maple, Magma, (Maxima?). While Python may have some merit in some situations, the case being made for it for Sage is weak, which is why I find some bizarre enjoyment in tweaking people who make these claims. Like so many people know it. (Why not use Java? or PHP?) Like it is slow but that's OK, you can use Cython (or something else that is not Python). Like it runs everywhere (but if Guido does X, Y, or Z, we can't use the new version) Like it is my favorite language (of the one or two I know). Like it has a natural math syntax (contradicted by almost all examples). >This comes out in a > lot of what you say. I would think users of Mathematica consider they write in > Mathematica, though the underlying code is probably C, C++, perhaps even Lisp > in > many cases. Everyone writes in binary, in underlying code. > > When people buy cars, the comfort, economy, look, performance, how nice it is > to > drive, are likely to be important to them. I don't suppose 99% care if the > engine block is made from steel aluminum. People are usually more interstellar > in the interface they are presented with. Some time ago I was shopping for a new car (assisting my daughter), and we were looking for safety, reliability, economy, comfort, price, warranty ... . A car salesman showing us the models in the showroom had an entirely different set of criteria which he said were the most important features to customers. Oddly, there was no overlap with our criteria. What were his criteria??? I can't even recall them all; I think there were five. Certainly they included power, handling, speed, maybe color, monthly payment, interest rate, ... cupholders??? More to the point, I think the big selling point of Mathematica initially and maybe even now, is presentation of graphics, plotting, etc. For which there are actually much fancier programs. But Wolfram (or whoever designed the graphics) made a nice cut between complexity and simplicity. He also was able to capitalize on other technology just coming out. the NeXt computer. A new Macintosh. A new device- independent graphics standard. interstellar/? > > I've yet to see a single complaint from a user that package X is written in C > and not in Python. So having packages in Python doesn't matter, and therefore it is not really a selling point and maybe should not be mentioned prominently because users don't care?? RJF > -- 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
