Typically, we publish a “Meet Your Developers” profile, where you can get an inside look at the lives of our developers. Today, we’re excited to bring you something a little different, a glimpse into the life of Maple Product Manager, Samir Khan.

Let's get right to it.

1. What do you do at Maplesoft?

I’m 50% of the product management team for Maple. I act as an interface between our developers, mathematicians, marketing, sales, and users.

I spend a lot of time speaking to current and potential customers – this is the most important part of my job.

At the beginning of each development cycle, I work with the developers to put together a list of proposed features. Then, during the year, I try to keep development on track to meet the proposed goals and provide continual feedback.

I also develop applications that demonstrate Maple’s functionality in new and different ways (most are on the Application Center).

2. What did you study in school?

I studied Chemical Engineering.

3. What area(s) of Maple are you currently focusing on in your development?

While I don’t do any direct development of Maple features, I sometimes prototype code as a proof of concept. The developers then look at me with a sense of disdain, tear my prototype apart, and rewrite my code from the ground up.

4. What’s the coolest feature of Maple that you’ve had a hand in developing?

While I generally don’t develop any production code, I’ve been responsible for driving the ThermophysicalData package forward

5. What do you like most about working at Maplesoft? How long have you worked here?

I’ve worked at Maplesoft since 2008. It’s a cliché, but I like the people first and foremost.

I also like the flexibility of my role. Within reason, I can devote part of my time doing things that I think will benefit the company. For example, I get to write lots of applications about subjects that interest me (usually thermodynamics or chemistry).

6. Favourite hobby?

I gave up all my hobbies when kids appeared on the scene. Before that, I wrote spreadsheets for financial modeling

Now, I like to do home science experiments with my son. Yesterday, I mixed yeast with hydrogen peroxide to demonstrate an exothermic reaction.

7. What do you like on your pizza?

Pineapple and mushrooms.

8. What’s your favourite movie?

I don’t really have a single favourite movie, but these movies that have the greatest impact on me over the last few years

• Interstellar
• Annihilation
• Dunkirk
• The Witch
• Frozen (yes, really)

9. What skill would you love to learn? (That you haven’t already) Why?

I want to learn how to juggle to amuse my kids. However, I don’t have the hand-eye coordination to be any good

10. Who’s your favourite mathematician?

That’s a really dreary question.

Instead, I’ll answer two completely different questions.

• My favorite kids TV show is Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom
• I usually listen to Slayer on the drive into work

Thanks Samir!

I like to use Maple debugger to help me debug and I am sure many do.

It is good that Maple comes with a debugger. I type "stopat(proc_name);" and then the debugger comes up when proc_name is called.

But the Maple debugger is hard to use. It appears to be primitive compared to other commerical debuggers that come with other known developments systems.

For example, the output of "enter a debugger command" is displayed back into the same screen where the code is listed. This makes hard to see. There is only one window. It is also hard to see where one is in the source code is. So I have to keep clicking on the "list" button to display the lines again and look for the small "*" on the left.

Basically, it is good to have the debugger, but it seems Maplesoft is not doing any improvements to make it easier to use. It is so 1980 looking compared to other easy and powerful to use debuggers, such as Matlab debugger, Visual studio, and others.

Could Maplesoft please make some improvements to the debugger? At least make separate side window for output of debugger commands, and improve the code listing issue? It will also be nice to have a call stack view, and variable view window, and to see where one is in the call chain.

Is this the only debugger available for Maple?