Wolfram Mathematica

Pluspunten: The most critical feature of Mathematica (and Wolfram products in general) is that everything is seamlessly perfectly integrated. Everything is curated and maintained up to date.
Competing platforms like Matlab sure offer a larger set of functionalities, but the integration of the many "packages" is too often very poor.
In Mathematica, every package is fully integrated with the rest of the platform like no other software. Maybe you can say that Labview somehow reaches the same level of integration.
Mathematica is a very flexible and multi-purpose software language that can be used for programming pretty much anything.
New functionality like "Cloud-deploy" allow anybody to run algorithm made in Mathematica from anywhere in the world, from any device, with the only need of having an internet connection and a compatible browser.

Minpunten: Some secondary functionalities like the Presentation notebook are not so well developed, yet. That said, I doubt many will ever use it.

Opmerkingen: Overal really useful if you know how to use it and particularly strong at analytical calculus and symbolic equations. Otherwise the language is a little clunky. If more people used it, it would be more valuable.

Pluspunten: Mathematica is really great at solving symbolic math equations. Unrivaled in my opinion. Analytical solving is a breeze with this and it is intuitive how it all appears, as if you wrote it on a sheet of paper. That is its best feature. Otherwise it has a lot of really cool math functionality for analzying data. I particularly have used it for signal processing.

Minpunten: Well it is like learning another programming language so you have to get over that barrier. It is hit or miss with other people who know how to read the software or even use it. The only reason I used it was because I found Wolfram Alpha online as an undergrad and when I became a grad student I found out the previous grad students used it. I'd say its programming language is a little clunky, compared to some competitors. And its not open software.

Opmerkingen: With this, you don't need to be able to develop complex programs to successfully complete routine calculation tasks. Our lab uses it to get accurate calculations for unit conversions as well as resuspension volumes, etc that usually take a while to calculate with excel or other data processing software. It's easy to use and can be customized given the right expertise.

Pluspunten: This software maes complex calculations that are routine a breeze to complete. We used to use excel for our calculations, which required really complex formulas typed in to the formula bar that were easily corrupted by an accidental click. Additionally, you had to be really familiar with the spreadsheet already in order to use the formula. With Wolfram, we have automated much of our routine calculations, such as titrations and reconstitutions. The formulas are already built in and require very little calculation on the user's part. Everything as simple as converting millimoles to micromoles, all the way to more complex tasks such as calculating dilution factors, can all be done quickly and has improved both accuracy and productivity in the lab.

Minpunten: In order to make many of the calculations and formulas relevant to our particular needs in the lab, we needed a person who was highly competent with program design and logic. For the longest time we were stuck with only using the basic functions until finally someone more familiar with computers in general helped us to design custom functions.

Opmerkingen: It was helping me out with my learning and check if I did well an exercise or if the result is similar, how it did get there.

Pluspunten: Ït's offline. It tells the way to solve some exercises and share its result, save it as capture image and so. It is not heavy for our device. A bit quicker and easier to use than another calculator with its features like solving integrals and derivations. Not programming knowledge needed.

Minpunten: IYou must be cautious with what and how you write your equations because of syntax and priority solving by the mathematics and the program itself.

Pluspunten: It has a great symbolic tool box great for solving very complex mathematical equations.

Minpunten: As someone who is used to regular coding languages like c. The coding in mathematica is initially hard to learn.