They've already been mentioned in this thread. You'll find them when you need them. If you don't find them useful, then you won't be at all impressed by them-- they don't have the ooo-aah affect that Mathematica gives... think of a powerful CLI interface vs. Windows XP-- there isn't anything exciting about a blinking cursor.
Anyway, I'm just an amateur, and the one I use the most is Singular. Compare Singular to Maple, for instance. If you want to do computational commutative algebra in Maple, you have a command to compute a Groebner basis over a very limited number of rings, and very little else. You would have to write your own code to do most other useful things (i.e., Maple is pretty useless for this purpose, compared to essentially all other packages). The trick Maple does is that it will try to cover as many fundamental objects in as many areas as possible, giving the impression of a very extensive tool, but actually it is only superficially useful in numerous fields and sub-fields. Anyway, Maplesoft and others could higher people to write code for many specialized fields, but why do this when most univeristies buy site licenses anyway? Once you start writing something that goes beyond a general-purpose tool for undergraduate calculus classes, you start losing LOTS of money, of course. Not that we need them to do this, but some people are under the impression that we do...
Given the deep roots of open-source in higher education, what can explain the lack of free/open-source mathematics software?
There is not, nor will there ever be, a lack of free mathematics software. Is there a lack of free/open source "Linux software"? Yes, but only if you ask a news reporter or MS apologist. C'mon man, Google Directory lists a good deal of free stuff here. You just forgot to look. Anyway, I'm sure this was covered on Slashdot as recently as last year.
The fact that most universities and engineering copmanies have these packages readily available is probably why a big reason why open source alternatives have not shown up.
This comment was modded "insightful". Unfortunately it is not true. Depending on what you want to do, there are some highly specialized, hardcore symbolic programs which make Maple, Mathematica, and Mathcad seem like toys. Really, those commercial apps just give you a smorgasboard of basic functions and formulas so as to be considered useful to all. Once you start doing something more serious, you might drop them completely (unless you use their programming languages). If all you're looking for is some general purpose thingie which is a clone of the very popular commercial apps, try the options others already suggested. One I don't think has been mentioned so far is Scilab, which seems to look like Matlab, and looks pretty extensive, though I've never used it. And by the way, the reason why all the specialized programs exist is because scientists and mathematicians find commercial apps largely inadequate for their needs. What's so funny is that this largely parallels the Windows vs. Linux situation-- the commercial players make general purpose, easy-to-use programs which are very pretty and have lots of ohhhhh-ahhhhhh eye-popping features that are very useful for powerpoint presentations.
When you say "mean", do you mean "arithmetic mean", "geometric mean", "harmonic mean", "root-mean-square", "mode", "median", or one of the other myriad types of means? I'm not being a smart-ass-- just pointing out that everyone has this one wrong today. Do the dictionaries have this one wrong or something?
The word 'average' is a general term often used instead of the words 'mean', 'median', or 'mode'.
The general term you refer to is "mean". For example, "geometric mean", "harmonic mean", "arithmetic mean" are all types of means. Average (at least when I was being brought up) is another name for "arithmetic mean". The general term is "mean" though.
The
mean is the sum total divided by the number of elements.
Sorry, have to correct you. "Mean" is a general term which can describe, say, arithmetic mean (average), geometric mean, harmonic mean, root-mean-square, etc... You meant to say "arithmetic mean" or "average".
Government requested that we put it in HP scanners several years ago. We refused as it was technically highly infeasible, if not outright impossible.
Do you guys even make scanners that good? (just kidding)
It looks clearer now: Counterfeiter scans the note (with a friendly HP scanner:), edits the image with Photoshop, and prints it out on a high-quality printer. So maybe the government asked the same of printer manufacturers? Interesting...
We read Slashdot here at Real, especially when the subject of our company or technology comes up, so we know some of you may not have liked recent versions of our player.
Man, the Windows users here are coming out in droves to clown on you pretty hard. I kinda feel bad for you. Anyway, as a Linux/Solaris user, I do appreciate that you provided a sreaming player back when no other company did, so I could watch the lectures at mrsi.org. However, I must admit I wish they'd use something more open
Television broadcasting stations have had such technology for a very long time. So Tivo should get a patent because they made a version that's much cheaper?
It's possible, some would say probable, that this is actually code that SCO copied from Linux. Not the inverse. I'm not knowledgeable enough of the history to determine that...
after having said
Despite the seemingly preposterous evidence offered thus far by SCO, I'm saddened to reveal that they may have a solid case for copyright infringement in the 2.4 Linux kernel.
why not just say, "I see some code that is identical, but I know nothing of its true origins" since there are obviously many, many more examples of identical code in Linux, BSD, and SCOwhatever. Moreover, many others have been making the same conclusions bases on the same scant evidence.
Maybe it's because QT resembles MS Windows more than GTK, or some other non-technical reason. That Gnome contains Evolution is probably a big reason nobody mentions. By the way, some of the companies you list above write GTK apps, though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on all of this since I'm not going to bother to do the research.
You could read the paper, or hear the real truth: many people find it hard to take seriously a desktop environment with a default girly pastel-colored look (Windows XP is an exception, for its ubiquity). People may want to push a more conservative-looking desktop towards businesses. Gnome is it. We wouldn't be having this conversation if KDE weren't so "Crayola" by default.
Re:I won't give them the satisfaction.
on
Paperless Billing?
·
· Score: 1
Umm, which credit card was this? Please help your fellow man:)
I doubt the court would want to force vendors to use alleged SCO code when they don't want to. More likely is that the court is giving SCO the benefit of the doubt early in the trial. SCO would have to present its (closed) UNIX code along with Linux code, so there's no point in revealing any of it. I think we shoild have expected this. However, if SCO sues anyone in the future, the code would have to be revealed to the defendant anyway.
Also, the code isn't really public. For instance, anybody's social security number may show up in a uuencoded binary, but until it is identified as such, the SSN is not public.
When I was a kid and first confronted with VI, I was like, WTF?, and then this girl showed me EMACS, and it was like a breath of fresh air. Ten years later, I've been using VIM for a month, and doing stuff related to editing in VIM is soooo much easier than with EMACS. You can essentially write your own VIM IDE in a day. What was I thinking?
Slashdot Mirror
They've already been mentioned in this thread. You'll find them when you need them. If you don't find them useful, then you won't be at all impressed by them-- they don't have the ooo-aah affect that Mathematica gives... think of a powerful CLI interface vs. Windows XP-- there isn't anything exciting about a blinking cursor.
Anyway, I'm just an amateur, and the one I use the most is Singular. Compare Singular to Maple, for instance. If you want to do computational commutative algebra in Maple, you have a command to compute a Groebner basis over a very limited number of rings, and very little else. You would have to write your own code to do most other useful things (i.e., Maple is pretty useless for this purpose, compared to essentially all other packages). The trick Maple does is that it will try to cover as many fundamental objects in as many areas as possible, giving the impression of a very extensive tool, but actually it is only superficially useful in numerous fields and sub-fields. Anyway, Maplesoft and others could higher people to write code for many specialized fields, but why do this when most univeristies buy site licenses anyway? Once you start writing something that goes beyond a general-purpose tool for undergraduate calculus classes, you start losing LOTS of money, of course. Not that we need them to do this, but some people are under the impression that we do...
Given the deep roots of open-source in higher education, what can explain the lack of free/open-source mathematics software?
There is not, nor will there ever be, a lack of free mathematics software. Is there a lack of free/open source "Linux software"? Yes, but only if you ask a news reporter or MS apologist. C'mon man, Google Directory lists a good deal of free stuff here. You just forgot to look. Anyway, I'm sure this was covered on Slashdot as recently as last year.
The fact that most universities and engineering copmanies have these packages readily available is probably why a big reason why open source alternatives have not shown up.
This comment was modded "insightful". Unfortunately it is not true. Depending on what you want to do, there are some highly specialized, hardcore symbolic programs which make Maple, Mathematica, and Mathcad seem like toys. Really, those commercial apps just give you a smorgasboard of basic functions and formulas so as to be considered useful to all. Once you start doing something more serious, you might drop them completely (unless you use their programming languages). If all you're looking for is some general purpose thingie which is a clone of the very popular commercial apps, try the options others already suggested. One I don't think has been mentioned so far is Scilab, which seems to look like Matlab, and looks pretty extensive, though I've never used it. And by the way, the reason why all the specialized programs exist is because scientists and mathematicians find commercial apps largely inadequate for their needs. What's so funny is that this largely parallels the Windows vs. Linux situation-- the commercial players make general purpose, easy-to-use programs which are very pretty and have lots of ohhhhh-ahhhhhh eye-popping features that are very useful for powerpoint presentations.
When you say "mean", do you mean "arithmetic mean", "geometric mean", "harmonic mean", "root-mean-square", "mode", "median", or one of the other myriad types of means? I'm not being a smart-ass-- just pointing out that everyone has this one wrong today. Do the dictionaries have this one wrong or something?
Is it me, or is everyone screwing this up today?
The general term you refer to is "mean". For example, "geometric mean", "harmonic mean", "arithmetic mean" are all types of means. Average (at least when I was being brought up) is another name for "arithmetic mean". The general term is "mean" though.
Sorry, have to correct you. "Mean" is a general term which can describe, say, arithmetic mean (average), geometric mean, harmonic mean, root-mean-square, etc... You meant to say "arithmetic mean" or "average".
That OJ verdict still smarts after all these years, hunh?
Score: 6, Funny
Government requested that we put it in HP scanners several years ago. We refused as it was technically highly infeasible, if not outright impossible.
Do you guys even make scanners that good? (just kidding)
It looks clearer now: Counterfeiter scans the note (with a friendly HP scanner
Maybe the government requested it?
We read Slashdot here at Real, especially when the subject of our company or technology comes up, so we know some of you may not have liked recent versions of our player.
Man, the Windows users here are coming out in droves to clown on you pretty hard. I kinda feel bad for you. Anyway, as a Linux/Solaris user, I do appreciate that you provided a sreaming player back when no other company did, so I could watch the lectures at mrsi.org. However, I must admit I wish they'd use something more open
Television broadcasting stations have had such technology for a very long time. So Tivo should get a patent because they made a version that's much cheaper?
Actually, it has been solved. I've talked with some people in the know. It's the real deal this time.
If you claim after having said why not just say, "I see some code that is identical, but I know nothing of its true origins" since there are obviously many, many more examples of identical code in Linux, BSD, and SCOwhatever. Moreover, many others have been making the same conclusions bases on the same scant evidence.
I should tell this to T-Mobile. I was in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport last week and had trouble working through a VPN.
When, oh when will people realize that the future of Linux and Open Source is dependent on corporate adoption?
Maybe. But the future of free software certainly doesn't depend on "corporate adoption".
I wouldn't call Bruce Perens' decision not to promote non-free software "ideological". I mean, that's closely related to what he does for a living.
Maybe it's because QT resembles MS Windows more than GTK, or some other non-technical reason. That Gnome contains Evolution is probably a big reason nobody mentions. By the way, some of the companies you list above write GTK apps, though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on all of this since I'm not going to bother to do the research.
You could read the paper, or hear the real truth: many people find it hard to take seriously a desktop environment with a default girly pastel-colored look (Windows XP is an exception, for its ubiquity). People may want to push a more conservative-looking desktop towards businesses. Gnome is it. We wouldn't be having this conversation if KDE weren't so "Crayola" by default.
Umm, which credit card was this? Please help your fellow man :)
I doubt the court would want to force vendors to use alleged SCO code when they don't want to. More likely is that the court is giving SCO the benefit of the doubt early in the trial. SCO would have to present its (closed) UNIX code along with Linux code, so there's no point in revealing any of it. I think we shoild have expected this. However, if SCO sues anyone in the future, the code would have to be revealed to the defendant anyway.
Also, the code isn't really public. For instance, anybody's social security number may show up in a uuencoded binary, but until it is identified as such, the SSN is not public.
Maybe the reviewer should have said "GNU/Linux" instead?
When I was a kid and first confronted with VI, I was like, WTF?, and then this girl showed me EMACS, and it was like a breath of fresh air. Ten years later, I've been using VIM for a month, and doing stuff related to editing in VIM is soooo much easier than with EMACS. You can essentially write your own VIM IDE in a day. What was I thinking?
Hey, I googled "dandelions IDE" and couldn't find anything. Do you have the URL?
never mind. asked and answered... just used "strings"