Mathematica

http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html

is a pretty damm expensive bit of maths software, costing £2035 for 
Windows/Mac/Linux and £2495 for Solaris.

Sage:

http://www.sagemath.org/

is an open-source maths program, costing £0.00. Sage has some funding, 
in the form of money from Microsoft for a native port to Windows, also 
support from Google etc.

I'd be interested in an objective comparison of the two sites, and any 
suggestions for how the Sage one might be improved.

In what ways is the Mathematica site better than the Sage one? In what 
ways is the Sage site better than the Mathematica one?

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Dave wrote:
> Mathematica
> 
> http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html
> 
> is a pretty damm expensive bit of maths software, costing £2035 for 
> Windows/Mac/Linux and £2495 for Solaris.
> 
> Sage:
> 
> http://www.sagemath.org/
> 
> is an open-source maths program, costing £0.00. Sage has some funding, 
> in the form of money from Microsoft for a native port to Windows, also 
> support from Google etc.
> 
> I'd be interested in an objective comparison of the two sites, and any 
> suggestions for how the Sage one might be improved.
> 
> In what ways is the Mathematica site better than the Sage one? In what 
> ways is the Sage site better than the Mathematica one?
> 

Is there nobody monitoring the forum? I don't see any posts for the last 
few days.

-- 
I respectfully request that this message is not archived by companies as
unscrupulous as 'Experts Exchange' . In case you are unaware,
'Experts Exchange'  take questions posted on the web and try to find
idiots stupid enough to pay for the answers, which were posted freely
by others. They are leeches.

At 12:13:42 on Mon, 25 May 2009, Dave  wrote in 
:

>Is there nobody monitoring the forum? I don't see any posts for the 
>last few days.

"Monitoring" is the wrong way to look at it.  This is not a helpdesk; it 
is a discussion group.  Those who are interested in discussing something 
will discuss it;  those who are not interested in that particular 
subject will leave it alone.

Your post demanded that other people should write for you a comparison 
between two web sites, and was phrased in terms more suitable for a 
school examination.  I'm hardly surprised that it hasn't inclined 
anybody to reply.

>In case you are unaware,
>'Experts Exchange'  take questions posted on the web and try to find
>idiots stupid enough to pay for the answers, which were posted freely
>by others. They are leeches.

People would have to be extremely stupid to pay to view any answers 
whatsoever on that web site, since the answers are always perfectly 
visible to users of Firefox, even with Javascript enabled.  Users of IE, 
of course, can't see them.  (Wait, what was I saying about "extremely 
stupid"?)
-- 
Molly Mockford
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
(My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.)

Molly Mockford wrote:

> Your post demanded that other people should write for you a comparison 
> between two web sites, and was phrased in terms more suitable for a 
> school examination.  I'm hardly surprised that it hasn't inclined 
> anybody to reply.

My post did not demand anything. I said "I'd be interested in an 
objective comparison of the two sites, and any suggestions for how the 
Sage one might be improved. " I don't see how that is demanding.

I did not intend it to be like a school exam - I'm sorry if it came 
across like that.

If you have any comments about the two sites, I would appreciate hearing 
them.

-- 
I respectfully request that this message is not archived by companies as
unscrupulous as 'Experts Exchange' . In case you are unaware,
'Experts Exchange'  take questions posted on the web and try to find
idiots stupid enough to pay for the answers, which were posted freely
by others. They are leeches.

In article , Dave  wrote:

> Dave wrote:
> > Mathematica
> > 
> > http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html
...
> > http://www.sagemath.org/
> > 
...
> > I'd be interested in an objective comparison of the two sites, and any 
> > suggestions for how the Sage one might be improved.
> > 
> > In what ways is the Mathematica site better than the Sage one? In what 
> > ways is the Sage site better than the Mathematica one?
> > 
> 
> Is there nobody monitoring the forum? I don't see any posts for the last 
> few days.

Yes, me, I'm monitoring it. I feel I have let you down. I took my eye 
off the ball. Please forgive me. It may help to know that I hired the 
same guy that the psychopath in Dirty Harry hired to beat the crap out 
of him... I can just about type slowly and see a bit though my bruised 
eyes:

The wolfram site has 12 errors but 2 warnings in validation matters, 
whereas the sage site has 14 errors. Perhaps we can can call it neck and 
neck at this stage of the race.

The one uses transitional 4.01 and the other XHTML 1.0 Transitional, in 
neither case is it clear what they are transitioning from. 

The w site looks nicer, classier in colour and print. All clean and sort 
of neat. The s one is too lurid with the purplyblue.

The w site author  uses a flash box which is sort of annoying 
unannounced. The w top menu text wraps unnecessarily at larger user text 
sizes and the drop down menus then get confusing. The search box starts 
to disappear into the red. On other pages, the top menu items can 
actually disappear at bigger user text sizes. Other blemishes due to 
poor fixed pixel dimensioning where text breaks out. Irritating 
horizontal scroll bars when strictly unnecessary. A source (see View 
Source) that looks rather incompetent in too many ways to list. It's a 
bloody wonder the show gets on the road.

The s site is simpler to look at, and (with javascript off at least) 
more pleasant to negotiate and read...

Both authors would benefit from being simpler, dropping every fancy bit 
of javascript and flash, and reading:

<http://htmldog.com/>

but using Strict 4.01 doctype.

Have to go, I paid for two sessions of beatings, the man is waiting and 
it is costing me money...

-- 
dorayme

dorayme wrote:

> The wolfram site has 12 errors but 2 warnings in validation matters, 
> whereas the sage site has 14 errors. Perhaps we can can call it neck and 
> neck at this stage of the race.
> 
> The one uses transitional 4.01 and the other XHTML 1.0 Transitional, in 
> neither case is it clear what they are transitioning from. 
> 
> The w site looks nicer, classier in colour and print. All clean and sort 
> of neat. The s one is too lurid with the purplyblue.
> 
> The w site author  uses a flash box which is sort of annoying 
> unannounced. The w top menu text wraps unnecessarily at larger user text 
> sizes and the drop down menus then get confusing. The search box starts 
> to disappear into the red. On other pages, the top menu items can 
> actually disappear at bigger user text sizes. Other blemishes due to 
> poor fixed pixel dimensioning where text breaks out. Irritating 
> horizontal scroll bars when strictly unnecessary. A source (see View 
> Source) that looks rather incompetent in too many ways to list. It's a 
> bloody wonder the show gets on the road.
> 
> The s site is simpler to look at, and (with javascript off at least) 
> more pleasant to negotiate and read...
> 
> Both authors would benefit from being simpler, dropping every fancy bit 
> of javascript and flash, and reading:
> 
> <http://htmldog.com/>
> 
> but using Strict 4.01 doctype.

Thank you very much for your thoughts on this. They were much 
appreciated. I've copied them to the Sage developers mailing list, where 
  I had started a discussion on the topic of the Sage web site.

http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/c9fbf6def4808fc1


-- 
I respectfully request that this message is not archived by companies as
unscrupulous as 'Experts Exchange' . In case you are unaware,
'Experts Exchange'  take questions posted on the web and try to find
idiots stupid enough to pay for the answers, which were posted freely
by others. They are leeches.