Competitor evaluation

[athurin]

Hi,

I didn't want to do this publicly, but since PTC has removed (or at least, very well hidden) the private message option on this forum, I don't know how to share this with only the people who asked anymore...

Here is a very basic evaluation file for Maple (v18). It doesn't do much, just shows some of the existing features, the ones that I personally would use the most, or find useful of fun. It is not meant to be exhaustive, far from it. I also haven't done the "import" section, because I am a bit lazy ( ) and it is not a feature I use much.

If anyone has questions, please ask. I don't mind adding a few bits on the document to show capabilities, but I won't spend hours on it...

There is a free viewer on Maplesoft's website : Free Maple Player - Maplesoft . I haven't tried it, so I have no idea what it does . For people who don't want to install it, I printed the file as PDF, it doesn't look as good (especially the graph section), but it does the job.

Personally, I have made my opinion. I am stuck with Mathcad for as long as I work for my current company, but if/when I change job, I will surely advocate in favor of Maple. Not only because I find it better in many ways (There are a few points I would like to see improved, but none of them are critical), but overall, it looks like a great product. It is a bit more expensive, but I think it is worth it. I haven't looked for criticism from the users on the forums, but I doubt that there are as many complaints as for Mathcad Prime. And although I don't use the API, the whole debate about highlighted a side of PTC's attitude towards their customers that I really don't agree with : it is that straw that breaks the camel's back, and I would really want to have as little to do with PTC as possible in the future. Even if I have to pay extra for that.

And just to reassure people: Maplesoft has chosen a client/server architecture: if they ever decided to completely change the user interface, the core is independent, and there probably wouldn't be any functionality loss...

[Dmitri_K]

Hi, Adrien.

As for me, Mathcad worksheets is looking better. To see math calculations in Maple you should create a code. In Mathcad not.

Compare with simple Mathcad calculations from my MOOC (XPS included to view without Mathcad). And look at Maple labs from MIT for the same course. Mathcad provide excellent readable documents. Maple don't.

[athurin]

This is just not true anymore. I used Maple during my studies back in 2002, and then, it looked very rough. Right now, in Maple 18, they have what they call "2D Math". It looks just like what you would write on paper, and it is very easy to use. It looks pretty good to me. Did you even have a look at the PDF I uploaded ?

What's more, although I left the prompts on my sheet, you don't even need to display them. It can just look like a succession of math and text with no real distinction, and even mix them (again, see PDF).

The one thing I will admit to is that Maple does't have a "notebook" style, it has a more "linear" style, like MS Word does. Still pretty good looking to me.

[RichardJ]

I mostly agree with Dmitri. Your document is very useful. It confirms what I thought about the layout of a Maple document, and fills in many details for me. The Maple document is readable, but it is not nearly as readable or well laid out as a Mathcad document can be.

[athurin]

I am curious to see what you consider a good layout then. I haven't made much effort towards the layout, and maybe what you are expecting is possible. Can you provide an example (Mathcad sheet, screenshot, PFC ...) so that I can have a look at that ? (note : I don't have M15 installed). Again, I haven't experimented much of the layout options, so ...

By the way, considering all the issues with Mathcad (no more progress on M15, huge step back with Prime, increadibly slow development, risk of M15 and all its not-yet-implemented-in-Prime-features being dropped, bugs, and the recent API SDK scandal, and so many others), I am a bit shocked that the "the layout is not quite as good" is sufficient to discard a competitor...

[athurin]

By the way, here are a couple of screenshots to show extra layout & formating options.

[RichardJ]

I dislike the very linear style, with all the answers centered on the page. What if I want two expressions next to each other? Or a graph with some explanatory text to the right of it? I especially dislike that the expression being evaluated is on the left and the answer is in the middle of the page. I don't like all the grey arrows, black brackets and prompts on the left of the page, although maybe they can be turned off. If you want to know what a good layout is, think about the layout of a book that contains math, graphs, etc. There is of course variation, but there is a general style that has evolved over a very long time (a couple of centuries, at least). It has evolved to be what it is because it's very readable and clear. Mathcad comes a lot closer to that style than Maple.

I am not discarding Maple as a competitor. I am saying that the layout possibilities in Maple as not as flexible, or overall as good, as in Mathcad. I could add that the layout possibilities in Smath are also better than in Maple, but I am certainly not going to say that Smath is a better math package than Maple.

Different math packages have different capabilities. If you want symbolic math get Maple or Mathematica. If you want to analyze huge data sets or to generate C code from your high level math expressions, get Matlab. If you want to document engineering calculations, where layout and units are arguably the most important features, get Mathcad. If you want to do many of those things, the best solution may be to look at the various packages as complimentary tools, rather than competitors. Use the right tool for the job. I know many people that use both Mathcad and Matlab, for exactly this reason. Mathcad 15 even has a built-in component to interface to Matlab (yet another thing missing from Prime!).

[athurin]

Thanks for your comments. I get your point. Here is what I can say about it :

• The black brackets are the Mathcad equivalent of the area. It can have a title that is visible when it is collapsed (in fact, it sets the title in "heading" style by default). This is clearly not something that HAS to be there if you don't want it. I agree that not everyone will like the grey arrow that indicates an area, nor the black bracket when it is unfolded, but that's the way it looks by default (and options are limited, so I don't think there is an alternative). Personally, ALthough I am not a big fan of the way it looks (mostly the big ugly arrow), I love the fact that areas can be nested, I find that using this make the browsing of the document (at least in Maple format, not in PDF format) much better, as it helps with the hierachy of the document.
• If you look at the "mixing math and text" section, you will see that prompts are not necessary. See the paragraph immediately after the first series of prompts : math and text are mixed very nicely, and it can even be done without creating a new line (but you can obviously put it on a new line if you want to). The result can be displayed "inline", as in Mathcad, or not displayed at all, or displayed at the center. Your choice (more options than Mathcad !). And quite funnily, it can even be displayed not immediately after the formula, but somewhere else (see paragraph after 2nd series of promts, in the same section : the result of equation XXX is YYY, with XXX and YYY math, and the rest is text !).
• If you want to puut several declarations on one line, it is possible too. The same way you can alternate math/text in a single line or paragraph, you can, likewise, fill some text with blank spaces, or add a table. OK, that not as convenient as Mathcad's drag&drop, but it is clearly possible if you want to.
• Text next to a graph ... OK, I haven't tried this one. The Generation of graphs trhough the UI only is not great (and it is a bit ugly to display a graph's command line, I agree). Maybe it is possible, maybe it isn't. My guess is that if you generate a graph via a command line it isn't, but if you generate it through the UI, it probably is (athough this comes with other issues).

Overall, yes, the organisation is very linear. But isn't a book linear too ? Isn't any text, or even math demonstration,somehow linear ?

I totally agree with what you say about the right tool for the right purpose. I have been fighting for 2 years now for my colleagues to start using Mathcad instead of Excel for their design justification documents, so there is no debate about that. All I am saying is : for me, Maple seems to be a much better tool, even for "just" engineering, than Mathcad. Clearly, there is a gap between us here because I don't have M15 as a reference for the user inteface (I started using Mathcad with Prime 2, and never used Mathcad Not-Prime). To me, all the "not user-interface" functionalities are as good as (or even better than) Mathcad (seriously, it even has tolerance management embedded ! what is more "engineering" than that ?), and even if the user interface is different (I wouldn't say less flexible, as it allows stuff that Mathcad doesn't), it is clearly good enough, even "just" for engineering.

[athurin]

As an example, here is the same sheet, stripped from the areas and prompts.

[RichardJ]

That is a big improvement

[athurin]

I personally prefer the other one as a Maple user and for a working document, because, like I said, of the hierarchy, that makes it easier for me to understand the structure of the document, and go straight where I want to. But I definitely agree that, as a "final report" in PDF, the second one looks much better.

[StuartBruff]

Adrien Thurin wrote:

...

Overall, yes, the organisation is very linear. But isn't a book linear too ? Isn't any text, or even math demonstration,somehow linear ?

No, a book isn't necessarily linear - it can have multiple columns, side notes, foot notes, graphs with text or calculations next to them etc, Mathcad can do many of these things, some of them better than others. I've often used side notes or made extensive use of the right hand pages to give auxiliary calculations ... the equivalent of having pull-out pages containing extra information. Mathcad also incorporates the idea of the whiteboard. This flexibility of arrangement, coupled to its textbook like appearance, is The Major Aspect of Mathcad that keeps me using it and that (currently) differentiates it from its major competitors.

However, this is not to say that it cannot be improved and I've made suggestions in the past (as have many others) to improve Mathcad in this respect. I find Mathcad to be cognitively less onerous than many of its competitors (which I have used) - it's far more Monkey Think, Monkey Do than the others, although the gap is narrowing and they often have capability that Mathcad lacks (it's kind of dispiriting to see, for example, many of the Mathcad feature suggestions I've made over the decade are standard fare in Mathematica).

Looking at Prime with its printing restriction of left-hand pages only, I hope that Mathcad isn't losing its way and regressing to being just another programming editor. If it did, I suspect I'd be jumping ship to Mathematica.

Stuart

[athurin]

Maple's word processing and layout possibilities are good enough for me, and being able to do more is not an important criteria for selecting a software in my opinion, but hey, different people, different needs

Out of curiosity, what does Mathematica do (particularly in terms of layout, but not only), that Mathcad or Maple don't ? do you have an example sheet and/or PDF to demonstrate ?

[StuartBruff]

Adrien Thurin wrote:

Maple's word processing and layout possibilities are good enough for me, and being able to do more is not an important criteria for selecting a software in my opinion, but hey, different people, different needs

if Maple suits your needs, that's fine.

I've outlined my needs many times before - I want a math-notation, drawable-surface application that will allow me too do "back of a beer mat" scribbles, Big Whiteboard idea development or off-the-cuff explanations, A4 paper jottings, etc and then allow me too progress these "informal" documents, turn them into "formal", company-standard design / validation documents and/or publication-standard documents. That's not asking to much, is it? (Says he, in a whining, plaintive tone of voice).

At the moment, Mathcad offers me more flexibility in terms of layout. Although, as I mentioned earlier, I don't like the way that Prime has relegated the right hand sheets to a single, non-printable page - this goes completely against the grain of the original Whiteboard concept and seems to ignore the trends in display technology that almost do away with the need for printing altogether or that transcend is limitations (eg, I've got twin 24" monitors arranged side-by-side as an extended desktop, and could happily make use of another two below them. Then they're touch-screen devices that get even closer to a virtual whiteboard).

Out of curiostabletmat does Mathematica do (particularly in terms of layout, but not only), that Mathcad or Maple don't ? do you have an example sheet and/or PDF to demonstrate ?

I do not know Maple and have only limited exposure to Mathematica (although I hope to gain some more), so I couldn't really say how Mathematica is better than Maple. I've implemented several Mathematica functions and some of Maple's plottools functions in Mathcad and have usually found the Mathematica approach to fit my way of thinking better.

I could, however, write a looooonnnnng essay on how Mathematica is better than Mathcad. Back in the days when Jean Giraud used to frequent the forum, I'd often make a feature suggestion, only to have Jean criticise it and claim Mathematica (or anybody, actually) didn't do it - a few minutes perusal of Mathematica's online documentation often showed they did, or it got implemented in a later release. I like the way that you can construct anything using the programming language and, similar to Maple's tables, you can create pseudo 2D documents (I think Mathematica may have slightly more flexibility than Maple in this respect but I'm not sure).

Stuart

[radair]

Just to expand a little on what people are saying about layout flexibility, I thought I'd show a concrete example. The attached pdf is a very typical working arrangement for me (today's work actually) while I'm trying to force symbolic processors to put algebra in the form I want. Apart from using all screen space side to side for storing bits and pieces of functions, function checks including plots and arrays of evaluation points, I just end up with things that simply are long enough to fill the horizontal screen several times over. I also hide things in collapsed areas and do a lot of formatting of output such as changing data tables to arrays in order to see all values and showing all bits in a double precision number. Slowing down work flow by requiring me to sift through tabbed data structures irks me enough that I still haven't installed prime on my machine even though I do beta testing. So while I may end up with final results that fit on normal pages, like Stuart, while working I want big whiteboards that are self documenting, very flexible in layout, and allow me to keep my required buttons at the top level rather than hidden in ribbons or their equivalent. The fact that I heavily use userdlls to add functionality is another of my quirks that makes mc15 easy for me. I've pretty much given up on ever being a target user for software companies.

Robert

[athurin]

StuartBruff wrote:

I've outlined my needs many times before - I want a math-notation, drawable-surface application that will allow me too do "back of a beer mat" scribbles, Big Whiteboard idea development or off-the-cuff explanations, A4 paper jottings, etc and then allow me too progress these "informal" documents, turn them into "formal", company-standard design / validation documents and/or publication-standard documents. That's not asking to much, is it? (Says he, in a whining, plaintive tone of voice).

At the moment, Mathcad offers me more flexibility in terms of layout. Although, as I mentioned earlier, I don't like the way that Prime has relegated the right hand sheets to a single, non-printable page - this goes completely against the grain of the original Whiteboard concept and seems to ignore the trends in display technology that almost do away with the need for printing altogether or that transcend is limitations (eg, I've got twin 24" monitors arranged side-by-side as an extended desktop, and could happily make use of another two below them. Then they're touch-screen devices that get even closer to a virtual whiteboard).

I understand your point. Again, Maple and math notation ... check ! Drawable surface/back of a beer mat ... OK, fair point. Clearly, with Maple, you would do your informal document more linearly. On this point, clearly, Mathcad scores, Maple doesn't.

Now my question is : what is the value of the white board ? How much does it weigh in the overall balance ? Again, I perfectly agree that some features are not negociable, and everyone has different requirements. My point is : it is not that much an effort to change habits for making informal documents, and there are massive benefits in the core of the software (do I really need to list those ?) or even other layout-related benefits.

Again, you have your needs, I have mine, no argument about that. But regarding each one of your needs consider the capabilities of both software, and weigh the costs/benefits for each (and again, it is perfectly fine to say that the cost of degrading one feature is infinite, because the feature is not negociable).

And also, don't forget to take into account that, unlike Maple, Mathcad development can be considered as complete standstill (at least until MP capabilities reach M15 capabilities).

StuartBruff wrote:

I do not know Maple and have only limited exposure to Mathematica (although I hope to gain some more), so I couldn't really say how Mathematica is better than Maple. I've implemented several Mathematica functions and some of Maple's plottools functions in Mathcad and have usually found the Mathematica approach to fit my way of thinking better.

I could, however, write a looooonnnnng essay on how Mathematica is better than Mathcad. Back in the days when Jean Giraud used to frequent the forum, I'd often make a feature suggestion, only to have Jean criticise it and claim Mathematica (or anybody, actually) didn't do it - a few minutes perusal of Mathematica's online documentation often showed they did, or it got implemented in a later release. I like the way that you can construct anything using the programming language and, similar to Maple's tables, you can create pseudo 2D documents (I think Mathematica may have slightly more flexibility than Maple in this respect but I'm not sure).

Any specific example ?

And what about "back of a beer mat", does Mathematica provide that ?

And can you clarify what you mean by "2D documents" ?