Cool!! Do they explain why Sage gets a relatively low rating, e.g. Scilab gets 9 but Sage 6? Is it because of the relative lack of our focus on numerics?
On 10/24/08, Minh Nguyen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi folks, > > This morning I received issue 109, September 2008, of "Linux Format" > magazine (dead tree version). Down under in Australia, we do have to > wait quite some time for overseas magazines to arrive. And when they > appear on the news stand at my local magazines store, the "latest > issues" of Linux related magazines tend to be rather out of date --- > that is, if you don't have subscriptions. > > The September 2008 issue of "Linux Format" magazine has a review of Sage > version 3.0.1 on page 33. This review is part of the issue's "Roundup" > section, pp.30--35, which also reviews Matlab, Octave, Euler Math > Toolbox, and Scilab. Unfortunately, I can't (yet) find an online version > of the Sage review at the official home page of the magazine: > > http://www.linuxformat.co.uk > > I've reproduced the Sage review below. > > <magazine-review> > Sage > > When the maths gets really serious. > > Sage is so much more than a numerical computing platform. Yes, it does > numerics, but it also does symbolic computer algebra that makes it an > extremely capable system for doing calculus and algebra but also > research in cryptography, number theory, and graph theory, to name a few. > > Sage takes a departure from the other platforms in this review in that > it uses Python rather than having a programming language of its own. For > some users this will be a significant attractor, since if you already > know and love Python you won't have to learn another language. From the > performance checks using the SVD and FFT, Sage (using Python's Numpy > Library) was comparable to Scilab and Octave, while the SVD test was > blazingly fast --- faster than Matlab by a significant margin. > > Sage is a relative newcomer to this group but it does make use of > software that started many years ago. Take Maxima for instance. Maxima > has as its ancestor the Macsyma computer algebra system initially > developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late > 1960s. Maxima and other components make Sage an eclectic mix of > mathematical software. > > It's all about sharing > > One laudable goal of the Sage project is to enable the convenient > sharing of mathematical ideas, and one way it does this is through the > use of web-based notebooks. You can enter commands into the console > provided by the Sage web application and then evaluate them. It really > is like writing a math notebook online. Your notebooks can be saved and > shared, which has many positive implications for teaching and research > collaborations. You can try Sage without having to build or install it > by going to www.sagenb.org, signing up for a free account and writing > your own notebook. > > <image> > [image featuring a Sage notebook session and a 3-D plot] > [caption: "The graphics in Sage normally display in a Java applet inside > the page. So much for the bleeding edge..."] > </image> > </magazine-review> > > The notebook in the image shows the following code, which was used to > produce the said 3-D plot: > > <Sage-code> > u,v = var('u,v') > fx = (3 + sin(v) + cos(u)) * cos(2*v) > fy = (3 + sin(v) + cos(u)) * sin(2*v) > fz = sin(u) + 2 * cos(v) > P = parametric_plot3d([fx, fy, fz], (u, 0, 2*pi), (v, 0, 2*pi), \ > frame=False, color="red") > show(P) > </Sage-code> > > Here are the ratings: > > Euler Math Toolbox: 5/10 > Matlab: 9/10 > Octave: 7/10 > Sage: 6/10 > Scilab: 9/10 > > By the way, I'm not quite sure what "SVD" and "FFT" refer to. > > -- > Regards > Minh Van Nguyen > > Web: http://nguyenminh2.googlepages.com > Blog: http://mvngu.wordpress.com > > > > -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
