Oh, shiny, why do you taunt me so?

[prusik]

Mathematica comes in an almost affordable Home Edition, $295. Based on the Q&A, I gather that upgrade discounts will not be forthcoming and it is licensed strictly for personal use. I interpret "personal use" as "incredibly cool, expensive toy." Frankly, that's exactly what I'd use Mathematica for at home. (My place of employment has its own licenses for Mathematica Professional. My job doesn't really involve Mathematica though.)

Alas, it doesn't support Mac OS X (PPC), and it doesn't make much sense to get it for the increasingly finicky laptop. I will not be buying Mathematica Home Edition for now. Existing desktop still runs fine and really needs to hold me for another year or two. It's not like all OS X(PPC) software will instantly disappear off the face of the earth when Apple finally drops support for PPC.

If Wolfram allows two installs on two platforms on the same license (unlikely) and Mathematica ran decently on previously mentioned handheld computers (also unlikely), I'd be in heaven. Who doesn't want a fully functioning Mathematica in his pocket?

(I should point out that this is the same reason why I'd love to run Ableton Live decently on a handheld computer. Incredibly cool, expensive toy. At least both toys would share the same hardware. Live costs about as much as that hardware though, possibly more.)

Comments

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that there a number of open-source equivalents which are considered just as good. One is called "R". I have no further info on that (and good luck googling it) but it might help. I can say from direct experience that Wolfram is insanely hostile and unreasonable about licensing.

[prusik.livejournal.com]

Yeah, names that aren't google-able drive me nuts. (I did eventually find R though. Of course it's an alternative implementation of S. It reminded me that at one point, I wanted to learn J. Obviously, everyone already knows C.)

I'm not surprised by Wolfram's attitude about licenses. Most of the Q&A on Home Edition is about licensing and how to make sure that Home is the correct license for you. (i.e., Home vs. Professional vs. Student) On the plus side, it appears to be full blown Mathematica (except it's a 32-bit app rather than a 64-bit app).

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was trying to get an academic volume license for my computer lab, and instead of pricing that based on # of seats or lab users, they wanted to base it on the total number of ALL students enrolled in the ENTIRE college. Which, to my thinking, makes them completely unreasonable A*holes and has led to me making active effort to phase out Mathematica entirely from my departments.

[prusik.livejournal.com]

Argh, unreasonable sounds about right to me. I mean, if no one in the rest of the school is going to use it, why should you pay for those licenses? *sigh*