Everyone, I am very interested in your comments regarding the Calculation Software Survey Results.

John Doyle,

Ease of use, modest learning curve . . . these are the primary reasons I use Excel for calcs. I ventured into MathCad, but couldn't quite get coordinated.

Some calculations I perform once every two years, or more. Spreadsheets are provide me with the memory I was not gifted. Some spreadsheets I have written and revisited after months or years, I don't even recognize, and must admit, "Gee, I used to understand that stuff." Well, with a well, authored spreadsheet, I don't have to relearn nearly as much, which makes me much more proficient and accurate.

And then, Alex Tomanovich's contributions allow me to pretend to be almost competent.

Thanks for all your effort.

John
I am not surprised by the results of the survey. Pen and paper is always at hand, doesn't require any computer, or program to be loaded first. The resultant calulation is also a fairly permament record of your train of thought, provided you keep it in a notebook or file, and is therefore also fairly easy to access again.

Keep up the good work with Excalcalcs
Willempi

Greetings... I find Maple 12, Mathematica and Matlab very interesting, however, very very expensive: the pro version is around $2,000. The student version is around $100 for a limited time usually one year, then you have to renew... that is if you qualify for the student version.

The decision to use an application like Maple or Matlab depends on what you need to do. In my case: I am studying mathematics. They help you a lot when you study on your own (my case): many problems do not have the answers on the back of the book, these applications show you step by step the calculations.

They can be used for a lot of things, of which I have no use or interest, so why pay for extras ?
Derive 6 is by far the best option if you only need to study mathematics:
student version $100 and pro $300. However, I understand it can be used for scientific research as well.

There are open source applications like Scilab, Octave and Cmap.:
en.freestatistics.info/stat.php
Sage already mentioned is another good option.

I use Excel because I cannot afford to buy Derive either. So I search for addins to study mathematics and statistics. And because I rather have an electronic notebook rather than a paper notebook. ExcelCalcs helps a lot because I can see the formulas as I would write them on paper... Thank You Very Much for the Free Version Mr. Doyle

Carlos
March 3, 2009
Cancun, Mexico