List of CAS: Mathematica, Maple

[SolidElast]

Hello All,
I would like to ask about experience in general math as well as general engineering software.
At university time we used in different departments
1. Mathematica http://www.wolfram.com/ + add on
http://www.fgg.uni-lj.si/Symech/
2. Maple http://www.maplesoft.com/ + add on
Mechanics of Materials Toolbox for Maple. (Can not find a link, but I have it from university)
Now at small company I am working with
3. Maxima http://maxima.sourceforge.net/

It would be very good to find something else (free or not expensive for home usage) with short description (main pluses and negatives)

 

[Mindscrape]

Octave is an open source matlab, almost literally (mostly the same MATLAB functions and everything).
Sage is has python style programming and can do analytics similar to mathematica.

 

[SolidElast]

Ok, thanks.
Sage looks great.
But what about compatibility on Windows 7 (32bit)?

 

[Mindscrape]

Hmm, don't know about windows compatibility. I'm always on either mac or linux. Yeah, Sage is pretty good, and the python style is a big plus if you're used to python (if not it's easy to learn).

 

[SolidElast]

Thank you Mindscrape. Excuse me for the questions, but it is near 1,5Gb. Can you take a look if it has command-line (CL) editor. I am in interest to build some engineering code and I think it will be faster in CL than within UI.

 

[Bill Simpson]

Free:
http://reduce-algebra.com/
http://axiom-developer.org/
http://fricas.sourceforge.net/

Not free
http://www.uts.com/
http://www.ptc.com/
http://mupad.de/
http://www.mackichan.com/

The best advice is often to get and use what those in your office or field use, or at least what some active group of individuals on the net use so you can beg answers when you just can't figure something out. Scan the last few thousand postings here and count how many "I'm using BlatBlort from Klatu and how do I fibrulate?" get no responses at all and compare that to how many "I'm using what you guys are using and how do I X?" But temper that statistic with they just might not have found the Klatu forum somewhere.

Getting really skilled at using anyone of these will probably require hundreds or perhaps even thousands of hours of work and study.

Those previous two points are likely far more important than whether it uses a few GB or how much the price on the outside of the box is.

Ten or fifteen years ago someone decided to spend a month or two comparing the leading products. That ended up taking him most of a year. His conclusions were that it takes a very large investment of time to become proficient at anyone of these and being skilled at one doesn't seem to provide much help in becoming proficient at another one. But I believe he was thinking of being really really good with these.

There is also the problem that, unlike any word processor available today, no computer algebra system can import and convert a document from any competitor's product. People sometimes ask for that and the answer is uniformly that this is not feasible. So you might want to consider the effort involved in translating back and forth between what you use at home and what you use at work.

Wolfram now offers an inexpensive Home version of Mathematica, but I don't know what the restrictions on that are.