Re: Wasted effort - help Maxima, Axiom, Scilab

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Re: Wasted effort - help Maxima, Axiom, Scilab
by Tina Russell on Monday 21/May/2007, @18:10

I totally way disagree... Plenty of programs _nominally_ have KmPlot's functionality. KmPlot is the _only_ program I've seen that does plots easily and quickly, and that allows you to change the coordinate plane dynamically and to trace Y-values along a function curve. I'll grant that I'm not a super open-source uber expert, but I know that ease of use counts and the time I would waste trying to figure out how to do plots in other programs (most implementations I've seen are simply frontends for GNUplot) is time I could have spent working and getting things done. KDEplot is simple, extensible, and powerful, and that's very important. Saying it's a "wasted effort" belies all the time and energy it has saved me in my math classes, but moreso it belies all the money it saves for all math students who need a quick and easy plotting program at home and don't feel like paying $80+ for a graphing calculator. (Remember, not everyone is going to learn about GNUplot frontends. Personally, I can barely get my brain around it and it's so frustrating, I'd much rather use KMPlot's simple, friendly, and dynamic interface, where I can add functions, change the grid, edit functions, etc. on the fly and with the fewest processes possible.)

Personally, I love Maxima... I use it and KMPlot together as something of a tag team for massive math productivity. A KDE frontend for Maxima would be killer, and one that would integrate with KMPlot would be sublime (in fact, combining such tools to create an integrated math toolkit, like Mathematica, would be a great goal). Just, please don't insult the work that KMPlot's team has put into this piece of software. I know it's not wasted effort because of how important it is to my math education. KMPlot is easy, simple, and fun to use, and that matters. I can't wait for the new version. And if you think developers should "stop playing" or "stop making toys".. you might want to realize that Linux basically started with some guy (that is, Linus) seeing if he could make his own OS just for the fun of it. There's value in toys and in tinkering; if you enjoy making your software, you'll make software that you will enjoy using, and that is the software that will be useful.

Sure, other programs do what KMPlot does... just not as well.

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·   Articles on KDE Public Relations and Marketing
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