Question about CAS and Graphing

[Han]

(11-23-2014 03:15 PM)Gerald H Wrote:  It may be a pleasure to bounce around between Mathematica & Maple in a world where both are freely available, unfortunately on my planet you have to pay cash for them.

I don't see why cost is at all relevant to the initial discussion. If anything, the cost speaks favorably for the HP Prime (and its free CAS). At any rate, the target demographics for the Prime includes college students. At many universities, software packages such as Mathematica, Maple, Mathcad, etc. are all available to students. You can even get them at student pricing (if you want your own license) for $75.

Quote:I pity the poor creatures having to use both M & M to solve their problems - do you imagine these beings will have the discipline to remember the system they're working in & come up with the right syntax everytime?

Are you suggesting that we pity folks who choose to do research for which applications such as Mathematica and Maple are simultaneously useful? I wouldn't pity them for the same reason I wouldn't pity folks who strive to learn two languages and struggle to understand those who natively speak the two languages in a mixed fashion (I know plenty of folks who speak half a sentence in one language, and finish the second half in another). If anything, I think it's commendable that people make an effort to learn more than one language, CAS, operating system, what-have-you...

Perhaps you meant we should pity the "creatures" who are given homework assignments that require multiple software applications to solve problems. While most typical class assignments will not require several CAS to solve, that doesn't mean that there aren't situations where the use of multiple software packages are necessary. I am sure you can find numerous engineers who not only have to program their own solutions, they probably even do it via multiple languages and/or CAS to check their work. In fact, I know a graduate student in engineering who was doing that just that this week -- and it was for a single homework assignment. Even among undergraduate students there will come times when they may rely on many different applications to solve a problem. For example, many undergraduates compete in the mathematical competition in modeling; the problems are often open-ended questions. As for whether they remember the syntax -- they try stuff out on their own, ask for help, and/or read the documentation and that seems to work out just fine.

If you don't like the Mathematica and Maple analogy, then just look at any recent version of Maple itself. They have both "worksheets" and "documents" and you can even use a combination of both inside a single session. I cannot count the number of times I have had to explain to students the pitfalls mixing 2D and 1D math and when what they type is math input vs. plain text.

Anyway, I hated the fact that the Prime had two environments when I first got one because the familiarity with the HP48G through HP50G calculators had been so deeply ingrained. Now, it doesn't bother me as much because I have gotten more familiar with how each work. Despite my love for the HP48GX, it just doesn't hold a candle to the power available on the Prime.