I'm a mathematician. One reason it matters to me is that if I write a program that computes something in a proof, I need to be able to understand and verify (or possibly check that other people I trust have verified) the source and algorithms.
I have also modified and extended open source implementations in sage to work with cases I needed. And I've added some of this back to sage.
It is undeniable that Mathematica evaluates crazy integrals better than most other tools. But it will happily output complete nonsense. And you can't check!
bmitc|2 years ago
Why does that matter?
in9|2 years ago
2) able to be around if a single CEO isn't around (Wolfram)
3) able to continue if the supporting company is not profitable anymore
4) possibility of greater oversight if popularity rises
5) extensible if one puts the effort into it
mixedmath|2 years ago
I have also modified and extended open source implementations in sage to work with cases I needed. And I've added some of this back to sage.
It is undeniable that Mathematica evaluates crazy integrals better than most other tools. But it will happily output complete nonsense. And you can't check!