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Mathematica 6 Launched
Ed Pegg writes "Wolfram Research has just released Mathematica 6. That link, in addition to the usual 'dramatic breakthrough' material, has an amazing flash banner that simultaneously shows a thousand mathematical demonstrations all at once. The animations came from the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, a free service with 1200+ dynamically interactive examples of math, science, and physics, all with code. For the product itself, much is new or improved, with built-in math databases, improved visualizations, and more."
check out SAGE: http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/
Mathematica is an absolutely fantastic package. The symbol manipulation (derivaties, integration, etc.) are outstanding, the graphing is rich (though the options are obscure), and the data-manipulation is great. It's a very useful tool when doing serious engineering and science, plus it's fun to play around with.
However, I recently ran into one of those "top 10 reasons why proprietary software is annoying" situations. I hadn't used Mathematica in awhile, and wanted to go back to some old code and re-run some analysis. However in the meantime I had migrated from Windows to Linux. No problem--the install disk has the installer for Windows, Linux, and Mac all in one. Great. So I install it in Linux and then get the annoying "you must register this product to use it." (On Windows it gives you two weeks before locking out, but in Linux it won't open unless you enter the code, which changes with each new hardware installation.) The online automatic registration said I had to contact them via email. So I did. Eventually got the reactivation code. Turns out it didn't run properly on Linux. The controls were clunky and I couldn't get individuals block to execute (though I could re-execute an entire workbook.) Okay, no problem--I have a Mac laptop. So I load it up there. Then I have to go through the reactivation process again. Another email, more waiting. Eventually get it running.
My point is that I had alot of difficulty getting my (legitimately purchased) copy of Mathematica to actually work for me. I was in a hurry and just wanted to run some code quickly. This 10-minute operation turned into a 4-day ordeal, at the end of which I was very frustrated. It really reminded me the great advantages of programming in standards-based languages, that have open-source implementations. If the code had been written in python (using the Gnu Scientific Library), I would have been able to run it without hassles, and I could send the code to others, knowing that installing Python (on the OS of their choice) was always easy.
I don't want to turn this into a stereotypical OSS vs. proprietary rant... but this very recent experience with Mathematica has left a bad taste in my mouth--and I was previously very much a Mathematica evangelist!
For other open source options, see Comparison of computer algebra systems on Wikipedia.
Maxima is included in the SAGE project. I strongly encourage anyone interested in open source alternatives to Mathematica to check out SAGE (http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage). It also includes a raytracer, the Gnu Scientific Library, numpy, scipy, singular, gap, and many more open source math projects. It is already very impressive and improving rapidly. I have over 5000 Mathematica notebooks, I've used Mathematica since 1990, and I am preparing to move all of my research and teaching (I am a math professor) over to SAGE.