Anyone using Maple in 2019 on regular basis?

[whoohm]

TL;DR Summary

Looking for suggestions about Maple software in 2019

I know these software packages were discussed a lot in the past, but I have not seen much input from the last couple years.

I have used Matlab for many years, but remember using Maple in University Physics courses many years ago. I'm interested in a software package for symbolic math to use for study and learning. I'm also wondering if it could be useful in my day-to-day work research. Is anyone on this forum using Maple on a regular basis for work or research? If so, do you like using it better than other alternatives (e.g., Mathematica, Sage, etc.)? Is there a large community of Maple users out there that share workbooks for learning? Any examples? Thanks for the suggestions in advance.

 

[S.G. Janssens]

Is anyone on this forum using Maple on a regular basis for work or research?

Yes, I use it whenever I do symbolic mathematics.

If so, do you like using it better than other alternatives (e.g., Mathematica, Sage, etc.)?

When I was a student, physics students learned Mathematica and mathematics students learned Maple. I had to use both and liked Maple better, although I am sure both are good packages nowadays. Maple's language and type system were not difficult to learn. (Also, once I read a bit more, I started to dislike Wolfram (the person and the company), so that was an extra - albeit somewhat irrational - motivation to stick with Maple.)

Maple has to start offering more to users that want to build their own packages. In particular, I find their GUI interface and code editor pretty bad. Maple is proprietary, so it is hard to make improvements here. On the flip side, the raw power of Maple as a CAS is impressive and very useful to me.

Sage does not appeal to me. It find it too much of a grab-bag and wrapper around other systems that do the actual work. I tried SymPy and liked it (particularly because it ties well with Python), but it cannot match Maple's power.

Is there a large community of Maple users out there that share workbooks for learning? Any examples?

There is MaplePrimes, which is quite active and helpful. There is also the Maple Application Center for sharing work. Unfortunately, these platforms are proprietary in a sense, which makes me personally less inclined to contribute there.

So, you could say I am a regular user and a critical fan.