From the Maple Flow purchase site, it appears that a copy of Maple is included with the price of Maple Flow:
May try the trial version, but initial reaction is the price could well be prohibitive, even if was better than MathCad.
I thought it would be interesting to do a side by side comparison of a relatively simple calculation, so I've compared my response to Fred's question about a weir - see below.
I didn't use units in Maple flow as I couldn't get the plot to work properly with them, though the individual calculations worked ok with them (it's likely that a more experienced Maple flow user would be able to get the plot done with units). There are some syntax differences as might be expected - the above shows a difference in the way functions are defined.
At present I find Mathcad easier to use - but I've been using Mathcad for over 20 years, while I've been using Maple flow for one day!
Maple flow as above, but with symbolics and units:
Alan
Encouraged by Alan, I've been playing with Mapleflow. Since a lot of my effort required units and since there appeared to be an issue with units on plots, I've spent most of my time there.
- While Maple has commands to add a unit to the list, it doesn't look like 'flow can; the command doesn't throw an error, but it has no effect. (I have not been able to create a unit for "g," one unit gravity at earth's surface. We often measure acceleration in g's)
- Units in plots works sometimes, but the effect is not consistent or predictable:
(Note that (I believe) the vertical axis is correct, but the horizontal axis is not.) This one is wrong completely
I like Mathcad because I don't (often) need to develop long scripted strings in unyielding programming language. Mapleflow seems to be an abbreviated front end to Maple, not the white board it claims to be.
Needs work!
