MaplePrimes - answers and comments on Question, MapleSoft sells out

this site

acer — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:07:35 Z

One counter-example to your claim about relative community support is this very site. What is there for Mathematica that compares with mapleprimes?

It would be interesting to see a detailed list of the mathematical features that you (or others) would most like to see implemented in Maple.

acer

a comment about direction

laurent — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:09:10 Z

I realize that a big announcement like this can cause some uncertainty and would like to clarify a few points.

Yes, Maplesoft has seen growth from the engineering market over the past years. However, mathematicians continue to form the majority of our customers and we spend a lot of mindshare on how to continue to provide new features for this audience with every release.

We also continue to work together with math researchers around the world and Maple continues to lead the pack in areas like differential equations and polynomial system solving, as a result.

I don’t expect any of this to change with the acquisition. Cybernet, btw, has been our reseller in Japan for many years and counts a large number of academic Maple users among its customers.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any further concerns about our direction

Laurent Bernardin
Executive Vice President & Chief Scientist
Maplesoft

ahem ...

Axel Vogt — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:15:09 Z

Though I usually do not enter such discussions: I agree, it is a nice example. It shows the deep understanding (of marketing? or more serious?) what 'academic' users need: nice pictures.

And I am not really sorry for that cynical remark.

detailed list

Alex Smith — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 04:53:05 Z

Who is in a position to compile this detailed list of mathematical features that users would most like to see implemented in Maple? I think it must come only from Maplesoft, based on bug reports and surveys.

Here is but one example: after 9.5, Maple's "solve" was wrecked. My colleagues and I have reported this. Now we are up to Maple 13, and it is still buggy...so we must keep 9.5 installed for faculty who do research that involves solving even modestly large systems of polynomials.

Then of course all the nonsense and confusion with Classic, Standard, Worksheet, Document, 1D-input, 2D-input makes it impossible to get a common basis. I have used Maple for 15 years, and I just cannot stand either Document mode or 2D input. Even copy/paste in Standard with 1D-input/2D-output is still problematic. Often the paste burps up weird mathml or something that leads to yet more frustration. No wonder instructors have started to have second thoughts about introducing Maple to easily frustrated undergraduates in Calculus I and II.

Document mode with 2D input, especially as the default start up, was the beginning of the end.

LaTeX and math features

alec — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:31:01 Z

The most important, probably, would be better integration with LaTeX, including conversion of formulas not only from Maple to LaTeX (which, by the way, is unsatisfactory now), but also from LaTeX to Maple, and using LaTeX in plots. Also, accessing Maple from LaTeX (something that Sage has), and a possibility to write articles (including, say, tests for Calculus classes) inside Maple, with including Maple calculations in them.

Related to that, plots export to pdf also would be helpful because most people switched from ps to pdf by now, and for that pictures in pdf format are needed instead of eps.

Plots export to png and svg, for including them in web pages, also, without doubt, would attract a lot of people.

Mathematical features - start with all that GAP (included in Sage), PARI (also included in Sage), Singular (also in Sage), Sage and Magma have. Combinatorics, Algebra, and Number theory most importantly. Then - what Lie and Schur have (for Representation Theory.) Geometry also would be nice.

I wouldn't call this site a counter-example. Not that many people participate on the advising side - only maybe 5 or 10. The number of mathematicians is even less. Compare that with old MUG group in which hundreds of people participated - that gives another example and not a counter-example. The Mathematica newsgroup is much more representative.

Now, it is not something new. In particular, not only me (as well as other Maple newsgroup participants) posted several times about that (a wrong direction of Maple development) starting 5-6 years ago and maybe even earlier, but also one of Maple founders, Gaston Gonnet. We all were ignored.

Alec

I just cannot stand either Document mode or 2D input

PatrickT — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:56:58 Z

same here, If there were a poll, my guess is that an overwhelming majority of users would say that.