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Re: Octave and Maxima (was: (newbie) fractional arithmetic)


From: Kevin Straight
Subject: Re: Octave and Maxima (was: (newbie) fractional arithmetic)
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 11:06:53 -0800 (PST)

My two cents:

Macxsyma/Maxima and Octave have totally different design goals.  Octave is
made to quickly deal with large matrices.  Maxima is for symbolic
manipulation.  In the decade (give or take) since they both came out, they
have acquired a bit of feature overlap, but you're still better off
choosing the right tool for the job.  Maxima will *never* be as fast at
numeric problems as Octave, and Octave will never be as flexible at
symbolics as Maxima.

And then, all else being equal, Octave is written in C++ by someone who
thinks in C++, Maxima is written in Lisp by people who think in Lisp, so
obviously if you prefer C++ you will have a shorter learning curve with
Octave.

That being said, I think it is a nice feature to be able to call functions
written in one language from another.


On Sat, 10 Feb 2001, Cederik wrote:

> Hi list:
>       I had been hearded, that Macsyma (the free version of Maxima) is
> for symbolic manipulation only and a more ore less non complex numerical
> manipulation, so: is more comfordable install a version of Macsyma (about 
> 4 MB the GZIPED 5.2 Version (Binary) Package) ? make some kind SH scripts
> for the manipulation of the data and then use octave.
>       I find not sense in the implementation beetwean the Macsyma and
> octave, in that case i think that make The Octave owns High-Symbolic
> Manipulation, and then make compatibility  with other Symbolic Languages.
> I had Macsyma and i can make a lot of things, but when i have a numerical
> problem i use Octave.
> 
> Regards ..
> 
> CD
> 
> 

==========================
Kevin Straight
University of Idaho
www.uidaho.edu/~stra9456
==========================



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