Maple (software)

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Maple

Maple 10 interface
Developer:	Waterloo Maple Inc. (Maplesoft)
Latest release:	10.06 / October 2006
OS:	Cross-platform
Use:	Computer algebra system
License:	Proprietary
Website:	www.maplesoft.com/products/maple/

Maple is a general-purpose commercial mathematics software package. It was first developed in 1981 by the Symbolic Computation Group at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Since 1988, it has been developed and sold commercially by Waterloo Maple Inc. (also known as Maplesoft), a Canadian company also based in Waterloo, Ontario. The current version is Maple 10.

1 Introduction
2 History
3 Origin of the Name
4 Example Maple code
5 Past releases
6 Use of the Maple Engine
7 Versions available
8 Criticisms
9 See also
10 References
11 External links

[edit] Introduction

Maple combines a programming language with an interface that allows users to enter mathematics in traditional mathematical notation.

The Maple programming language is an interpreted, dynamically typed programming language. As is usual with computer algebra systems, symbolic expressions are stored in memory as directed acyclic graphs.

Since Maple 6 the language has permitted variables of lexical scope.

[edit] History

The first concept of Maple arose from a meeting in November 1980 at the University of Waterloo. Researchers at the university wished to purchase a computer powerful enough to run Macsyma. Instead, it was decided that they would develop their own computer algebra system that would be able to run on more reasonably priced computers. Thus, the project began with the goal of creating a symbolic algebra system accessible to researchers and students.

The initial development of Maple proceeded very quickly, with the first limited version appearing in December 1980. Researchers tried and discarded many different ideas creating a continually evolving system. Maple was demonstrated first at conferences beginning in 1982.

By the end of 1983, over 50 universities had copies of Maple installed on their machines. Due to the large number of support and licensing requests, in 1984, the research group arranged with WATCOM Products Inc to license and distribute Maple.

In 1988, due to the increasing requests for support, Waterloo Maple Inc. was founded. The company’s original goal was to manage the distribution of the software. Eventually, the company evolved to have an R&D department where most of Maple’s development is done today. Development of Maple continues at university research labs including: the Symbolic Computation Laboratory at the University of Waterloo; the Ontario Research Centre for Computer Algebra at the University of Western Ontario; and labs at other universities worldwide.

[edit] Origin of the Name

There is a common belief that the name, Maple, is an acronym. In fact, the name is a reference to Maple’s Canadian heritage.

[edit] Example Maple code

Find the integral of $\cos\left(\frac{x}{a}\right)$
int(cos(x/a), x);

$a \sin\left(\frac{x}{a}\right)$

Calculate the root of the equation $e x = x 2 + 2$ starting at the point $x = - 1$ .
evalf(RootOf(exp(x)=x^2+2,x,-1));

$1.319073677$

Compute an exact solution to the linear ordinary differential equation $\frac{d^2y}{dx^2}(x) - 3 y(x) = x$ subject to initial conditions $y(0) = 0 ,\quad \left. \frac{dy}{dx} \right|_{y=0} = 2$
dsolve( {diff(y(x),x,x) - 3*y(x) = x, y(0)=0, D(y)(0)=2}, y(x) );

$y(x)=\frac{7}{18}e^{\sqrt{3}x}\sqrt{3}-\frac{7}{18}e^{-\sqrt{3}x}\sqrt{3}-\frac{1}{3}x$

Plot $x 2 + y 2$ width $x$ and $y$ ranging from -1 to 1
plot3d(x^2+y^2,x=-1..1,y=-1..1);

[edit] Past releases

Maple 10: May 10, 2005
Maple 9.5: April 15, 2004
Maple 9: June 30, 2003
Maple 8: April 16, 2002
Maple 7: July 1, 2001
Maple 6: December 6, 1999
Maple V R5: November 1, 1997
Maple V R4: January, 1996
Maple V R3: March 15, 1994
Maple V R2: November 1992
Maple V: August, 1990
Maple 4.3: March, 1989
Maple 4.2: December, 1987
Maple 4.1: May, 1987
Maple 4.0: April, 1986
Maple 3.3: March, 1985 (first publicly available version)
Maple 3.2: April, 1984
Maple 3.1: October, 1983
Maple 3.0: May, 1983
Maple 2.2: December, 1982
Maple 2.15: August, 1982
Maple 2.1: June, 1982
Maple 2.0: May, 1982
Maple 1.1: January, 1982
Maple 1.0: January, 1982

[edit] Use of the Maple Engine

Maple TA, Maplesoft’s online testing suite uses Maple to algorithmically generate questions and grade student responses.

MapleNet allows users to create JSP pages and Java Applets. MapleNet 10 also allows users to upload and work with Maple worksheets containing interactive components.

Versions of MathCad released between 1994 and 2006 included a Maple-derived algebra engine (MKM, aka Mathsoft Kernel Maple).

The Matlab Symbolic Toolbox contains a portion of the Maple 8 engine.

[edit] Versions available

Maplesoft sells both student and professional editions of Maple, with a substantial difference in price (US$139 compared to US$1,995.00, respectively).

Recent student editions (from version 6 onwards) have not placed computational limitations but rather come with less printed documentation. This is similar to the difference between Mathematica's student and professional editions.

In releases prior to version 6, the student edition has had the following computational limitations:

A maximum of 100 floating point digits for computations and display.
A maximum size of 8000 (in machine words or objects contained) for any algebraic object.
A maximum of 3 dimensions for arrays.

[edit] Criticisms

While some computer algebra systems are open-source software and may be freely used and copied, both Maple and its rival Mathematica are both proprietary software and includes restrictions on its use, modification, and copying. (See also: Comparison of computer algebra systems)

For users who do not qualify for Student, Academic, Government, or Network pricing, Maple 10.0 costs $1,995 for the Commercial Version. Even at half the price the Academic version is relatively expensive, discouraging teachers from recommending the Student version.^[1] This places the software out of the hands of many who could benefit from using it.^[2] This is contrary to Maple's origins from the publicly-funded University_of_Waterloo.

Maple 10.0 released in 2005 was rewritten in Java. It suffers from the same problems as many other Java applications: A look and feel inconsistent with native platforms, decreased peformance and a sluggish user interface ^[3]. This makes Maple 10 slower than its rivial Mathematica and previous versions of Maple which ran natively. ^[4]

Maplesoft has made changes preventing scripts written for old versions from being used with newer versions. While changes can be necessary, some of these changes have been questionable. These include arbitrarily changing the ditto operator from quote to a percent sign, and introducing new reserved words that are already likely to be used; e.g. CIRCLE. This forces users to either rewrite their old scripts (and risk a transcription error) or to keep older versions of Maple running. But Maple V for example cannot run under XP, requiring the user to use VMWARE to emulate a Windows 98 PC. ^[5]

[edit] See also

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of

Maple

MaplePrimes
Waterloo Maple - the creator & distributor of Maple
Open Source/Freeware Competitors:
- SAGE (GPL)
- Axiom (BSD license), Aldor
- Maxima (GPL)
- EigenMath (freeware)
- Mathomatic (LGPL)
Commercial Competitors:
- MATLAB - available from MathWorks
- Mathematica from Wolfram Research
- Derive
- MuPAD
Cost Recovery (non-free but non-profit) Competitors:
- Magma - available from the University of Sydney

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Maplesoft, division of Waterloo Maple, Inc. home website

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../m/a/p/Maple_%28software%29.html"

Categories: Domain-specific programming languages | Computer algebra systems | Functional languages | IRIX software | Numerical programming languages

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