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From: jp@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.math.symbolic
Subject: Re: Comparing symbolic mathematics systems
Message-ID: <25250@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 1-May-85 01:09:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: lanl.25250
Posted: Wed May  1 01:09:04 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 2-May-85 06:43:13 EDT
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> >  From: jp@lanl.ARPA
> >  I have used muMath on an MSDOS machine.  It was about as powerful as
> >  Macsyma and somewhat faster (Macsyma was running on a VAX-750).
> >  The only problem was that muMath doesn't have as many functions as
> >  Macsyma.  But, it is easy to write your own in the accompanying language
> >  muSimp...
> 
> What do you mean by "It was about as powerful as Macsyma"?  Perhaps all 
> you mean is that for the problems you were considering it did as well as 
> Macsyma would have.  You grant that Macsyma is more extensive (more 
> functions).  I believe if you look into it you'll find that Macsyma's 
> knowledge is also more intensive, i.e. its simplification, factoring, 
> integration routines, etc. are capable of more than MuMath's.  I think 
> MuMath is a great system, but in my book the above means that Macsyma 
> is more powerful.
> Wrt the relative speed of systems, the following should not be accepted 
> in specific cases without support, but sometimes a system is slower 
> primarily because it is more powerful.
> 
> 

Well, you're probably right.  My knowledge of MACSYMA is limited to the
problem I was working on (Characteristic polynomial of a symplectic matrix).
But, not only did MuMath do the job faster (except for time spent writing
new functions) but no one complained about my hogging the machine.  MACSYMA
apparently makes tremendous demands on the VAX-750.  I had to have my
privileges greatly increased.  Then I was told "Better you should run at
night."   My computer may be slow but it's always working for me!

Jim Potter  jp@lanl.arpa

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