SageMath: Python-based Mathematics. Rock it.

I really want this to work and I've played around with it a few times, but I've always gone back to Mathematica. I don't know if that's because I haven't invested the time needed with Sage or if its not really a replacement. I'd be very interested to hear from someone who completely made the switch.

Re: SageMath: Python-based Mathematics. Rock it.

#5

Post by msarnoff » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 5:37 PM UTC

Maxima (http://maxima.sourceforge.net/), one of the packages used by Sage, is a quite capable computer algebra system (written in Lisp) with a very long history. It's descended from Macsyma, which was created at MIT in the 1960s. If you look through some of the Maxima source files you'll find modification dates from the '70s. That has to make it one of the oldest still-active software projects. Heck, it's older than Unix!

Re: SageMath: Python-based Mathematics. Rock it.

#6

Post by katovatzschyn » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 6:41 PM UTC

I've checked back on this project from time to time but I've never been satisfied with it. The last I used it was perhaps 2 years ago, returning to MATLAB, Mathematica and Haskell/C.

Would any who uses it now or recently care to make a candid comparison between it and its commercial competitors?

Re: SageMath: Python-based Mathematics. Rock it.

#7

Post by muuh-gnu » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 7:43 PM UTC

msarnoff wrote: post #5

Maxima ( http://maxima.sourceforge.net/ ), one of the packages used by Sage, is a quite capable computer algebra system (written in Lisp) with a very long history. It's descended from Macsyma, which was created at MIT in the 1960s. If you look through some of the Maxima source files you'll find modification dates from the '70s. That has to make it one of the oldest still-active software projects. Heck, it's older tha…

The relationship of Sage with existing open source projects was something I never quite understood. Instead of investing their knowledge and time into improving the capabilities of existing systems (SciPy, NumPy or Maxima, Octave) to bring them up to par with the more pervasive commercial offerings (Matlab, Mathematica, Maple), they basically just bolted Python onto everything without in the end improving anything. Sage to me always seemed as just some kind of Python promotion vehicle trying to hide the fact that basically all the underlying systems it uses are written in other languages.

Re: SageMath: Python-based Mathematics. Rock it.

#8

Post by jey » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 8:05 PM UTC

katovatzschyn wrote: post #6

I've checked back on this project from time to time but I've never been satisfied with it. The last I used it was perhaps 2 years ago, returning to MATLAB, Mathematica and Haskell/C. Would any who uses it now or recently care to make a candid comparison between it and its commercial competitors?

Numpy, scipy, and matplotlib are the MATLAB replacements.

Re: SageMath: Python-based Mathematics. Rock it.

#9

Post by bane » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 8:29 PM UTC

This might sound a bit silly, but I still have never found something that let me work with problems quite as easily as my TI-89/92. Most of the CAS systems I've used feel like coding, while the TI CAS system feels like doing math. Sage just feels like an extension to the Math direction when all I really want is a fast (color) desktop version of my TI-92. The closest I've seen was the old graphing calc that came with PowerPC macs back in the early 90's.

Re: SageMath: Python-based Mathematics. Rock it.

#10

Post by tomrod » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 8:45 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #9

This might sound a bit silly, but I still have never found something that let me work with problems quite as easily as my TI-89/92. Most of the CAS systems I've used feel like coding, while the TI CAS system feels like doing math. Sage just feels like an extension to the Math direction when all I really want is a fast (color) desktop version of my TI-92. The closest I've seen was the old graphing calc that came with…

This meets your fancy? http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tiemu/