Re: [Axiom-developer] SAGE, Axiom, and usage

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

C Y <address@hidden> writes:

[...]

| I'm not a teacher (only done a few labs over the years and a bit of
| tutoring) but if I were to offer a suggestion (just what you needed ;-)
| I would say this:
| 
| 1.  Start by introducing either Maxima using the wxMaxima interface or
| perhaps Yacas.  Either of those will probably be less intimidating to
| students up front, and their limitations will not be readily apparent. 
| Their prior experience with calculators will map to either of these
| systems reasonably well - they will most likely be less intimidated if
| they don't need to comprehend what a "type" is or why it matters up
| front.

this course is at a graduate level, and many of the students have some
basic knowledge of data structures, algorithms, programming languages,
generic programming, compilers, etc.

| 2.  Develop the students by gradually exploring more of the potential
| of the first system, and take them to some problems that "symbolic
| computation" doesn't handle so well.  I.e., show them both the utility
| of symbolic computation (which the commercial success of Mathematica
| and Maple prove is considerable) and its limitations.  This is good
| both for showing the limitations of the approach and also why computers
| can't substitute for an educated brain.

You have a good point.

| 3.  Then, later on in the course, introduce them to a more formal
| approach that avoids these limitations.  Most will probably not be real
| excited about this because it will look harder (being precise is always
| hard work ;-) but most will probably remember and if, in the future,
| they begin to do work that would benefit from Axiom's more rigorous
| approach they will know both about Axiom and why it might be better.

That is an excellent observation.  I will work out some of these
constructive suggestions.  Thanks!

-- Gaby