There are lots of free software packages that have to do with mathematical science, cryptography, or other math-intensive subjects. AsteroidMeta probably shouldn't try to list all of these packages. But this makes me wonder, what is the difference between these pieces of "mathematical software" and Free Math as it is treated on these pages. I don't really know the answer. Presumably there are some times when we would want to talk more about some piece of software. Perhaps the main thing about Free Math is that we're geared towards mathematical content. Sometimes this would include content related to computation. Anyway, its a curious thing, thinking about what to include and what to leave out. --jcorneli Thu Feb 3 15:45:42 2005
We certainly should talk about software we use, including use strategies, for example we can talk about using GNU Arch (which is, at least at first, a somewhat confusing topic) --jcorneli Mon Feb 7 03:29:48 2005
There's another alternative to "a single huge list of every kind of mathematical software" vs. "no list at all". Perhaps the AsteroidMeta pages that discuss specialized fields of mathematics could briefly mention software at the end? Something like "by the way, I found the ____ software package useful for studying this field; I've heard ____ is a usable alternative.". -- DavidCary?
Sure, of course it is fine to work software into our conversations (as long as it is free software). I do think the software we use page linked above is worth hitting pretty heavily, since out of the universe of all mathematical software, there are only a few programs and languages that people here actually do use. It may also be good to have a software we think is cool page (as long as people use it responsibly). As an example of how this sort of thing can useful: I hadn't heard of metamath until someone brought it up on the PM forums. It is good to spread the word, even about things you might not use yourself. --jcorneli Tue Feb 8 22:55:33 2005