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I suggest staying away from proprietary systems like Mathematica or Maple. What to use depends on what kinds of problems you need to solve. SymPy is really go
by mkl 3y ago
I suggest staying away from proprietary systems like Mathematica or Maple.
What to use depends on what kinds of problems you need to solve. SymPy is really good for a lot of things, very simple to use, and just a Python library. Sage is more powerful in some areas (which may be irrelevant for your needs), but a much bigger beast. There are several old, powerful, clunky CASs like Maxima, Axiom, FriCAS, that you probably don't need.
I suggest starting with SymPy. Working on getting better at doing things by hand will be useful even if you mostly use a CAS in practice, since knowing how to do it by hand will mean you know what to tell the CAS to do.
- in9 3y agoI've dabbled with SymPy in the past. Maybe I should follow the Cassela and Berger appendix with both side by side. Might help me understand if there is some value in it. And yeah. Proprietary software sucks. I suggested Mathematica because its what is mentioned in the book, and I don't hear much from others.
- badpun 3y agoLast time, I tried to do some moderately challenging symbolic differentiation with SymPy, it threw NotImplementedException at me. Mathematica, on the other hand, chews through everything with no complaints.
- mkl 3y agoSage, Maxima, Fricas, etc. should also cope. I'm surprised SymPy gave you a NotImplementedError for differentiation; I think I've only met them in integration and DE solving.