🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9610001@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM>, wayne@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Wayne Covington) writes:
>
>The advertisement with the $79 offer tells a person very little about what
>it can and cannot do.  So I visited some computer bookstores yesterday in
>hopes of learning more, but none of them had any books on MathCad.  Nor do I
>recall many MathCad postings in this group, even after Frank posted his
>inquiry.  If they are on version 3.1, it must have been around long enough
>to acquire a following.  Perhaps MathCad is shunned because its capabilities
>fall short of those of Maple, Mathematica, and other commonly mentioned
>computer algebra systems?
>
In my opinion, anyone who has used a real CAS will quickly get frustrated
with MathCad.  It is not easy to generate graphics (I'm sure to get a lot
of responses on this that say:  all you have to do is this...and this...and...
but I only got poor plots out of it after trying several times.  And surfaces
are nearly impossible), it doesn't want you to define variables - only letters
that are attached to fixed numbers.  That may be useful to some, but it is not
really computer-algebra.

Those who use it tend to mention that the matrices are easier to enter than in
Maple or Mma.  That is true - but again, I don't think it'd handle variable
entries easily.  It is not extensible, not flexible.

Even for typesetting, it does things its' way, not yours.  Better to paste
your TexForm output into a TeX document.
>Wayne
>
-- 
Sincerely,

David L. Johnson                    ID:  dlj0@lehigh.edu
Christmas-Saucon Hall #14, rm 241        dlj0@chern.math.lehigh.edu
Department of Mathematics

Lehigh University                   Telephone: 215-758-3759 (office)