>
> Seems this thread *has* been hijacked. ;-)
Just want to add my opinion, which belongs in some void between the
original thread and the hijacked one ;-)
I am a ph.d. student in algebra, but have a background in computer
science. I don't do much numerics anymore, so I'm not exactly the
right person to ask, but I do hang around with a lot of numerics
people. So far, I agree with some of the very insightful comments on
the problems with working numerically in Sage *once you got the
matrices* that has come up (like the posts from Jordi Hermoso, Chris
Godsil and Tim Lahey).
However, I really don't believe that the current matrix-construction
syntax is what is seriously keeping Matlab people away from Sage --
and if it is, then that's simply silly! Comparing
M = [1 2;
3 4;
5 6]
with
M = matrix(RR,2,3,[
1, 2,
3, 4,
5, 6 ])
that's a very small syntax price to pay for 1) unambiguous,
straightforward syntax 2) complete control of element space. I always
disliked Matlab for its happy-go-lucky, ambiguous syntax, and I think
it is unnecessary to make specialised, ad-hoc syntax in Sage for (2D)
matrices (over X-bit floats).
My impression from my own math department is that a lot of Matlab
users know more or less only Matlab as a programming language, and
that they have always used this, and their advisor also used/s this.
They have the opinion that it is really difficult to learn a new
language, and will dislike *any* difference between Matlab and
"Alternative X", no matter how minute (much like Jordi mentioned
earlier). I think it would be silly to start introducing Matlab syntax
and renaming functions to look as much as possible like Matlab for
this reason. The ex-Matlab users would not stop complaining until Sage
was a completely compatible superset of Matlab anyway.
On the other hand, I think it would of course think it would be great
if all functionality needed for numerics people would be readily
available in Sage. Though not at the expense of a dichotomised syntax
and namespace to cater for Matlab devotees. In time, I think this
would make people migrate to Sage because of expense, ideology and
functionality.
Cheers,
Johan S. R. Nielsen
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