Consider the task of sorting a list of complex floating-point numbers by magnitude. First Attempt The usual method to do this in Maple is with the sort procedure. By passing a boolean-valued function that computes then compares the magnitudes of two complex numbers, we can sort the list. The following procedure shows how this is accomplished.

sort1 := proc(L)
    return sort(L, proc(z1,z2) abs(z1) <= abs(z2) end proc);
end proc:

A disadvantage of this approach is that the absolute-value procedure is called twice every time a pair of numbers is compared. For a long list, the time spent in the absolute value routine dominates the computation time.

One of the joys of the software biz is the total uncertainty of things. We learned that the hard way last week when the course of regular maintenance on the servers took a horrible, nasty turn ... the great news is we're back with a brand new, high-performance server, and have switched over to SuSE Linux as the O/S. We're optimistic that we now have the proper infrastructure to sustain growth in this site ... and to also hook up some interesting new features that we have planned for the near future ... stay tuned.

MaplePrimes was down for a while this morning ... our appologies. Just to let you know, we are moving the site to a brand spanking new HP server blade within a few days. The site has reached a critical mass that we need to ensure greater reliabily and we're taking the step (hardware and humanware) to do this. Thanks for your patience. T4.

Thanks to Roman Pearce for this suggestion for the new poll. This topic is one of the livlier debates within the Maple community. Please indicate which platform you use for your Maple work.

I have now identified where the problem is in the plotting of unduloids using elliptic functions. There seem to be some singularities arising in Maple 10 that were not there in earlier Maple versions. I noticed also that, on the functionadvisor help page for EllipticE, the branch points are listed differently. Maple 9.5 has ... k, 1/k and Maple 10 has ... -1/k,1/k ... Is this a misprint or the source of the trouble. At any rate, for those who want to see what is happening, try the following in Maple 9.5 and in Maple 10:

>

FYI: Maplesoft just released DynaflexPro , a new product that generates equations of motion for physical systems (including mechanical, mechatronic, and others). Automatic generation of model equations is one of the most powerful and popular applications of Maple in the engineering fields and Dynaflex offers a lot of tools to make this more efficient.

A colleague has been frustrated by the apparent limitations to Maple's abilities to "solve" inequalities. This does appear to be something that should - and could - be improved with a little effort. The typical problem under consideration is the epsilon-delta definition of limit. Ideally, it would be nice to execute a command such as

> solve( abs( f-L ) < epsilon, x );

and receive an answer in terms of intervals.

I have a classic-worksheet version of Maple 9.5 that runs as an X11 application on my Macintosh. Is there a classic-worksheet version of Maple 10 that does the same? If so, where can I get it?

It would be good if I could tell looking at the list of messages in the Inbox or other folder, to which of them I replied. Also, it would be a nice feature if I could see in the Sent folder whether my message to somebody had been read, or not.

Hi all. If you have a question on how to do something on Maple, can you post them in a Forum? Either "How Do I? (Newbie)" for new users or "How Do I" for experienced users. We'd like to reserve Blogs for short articles and thoughts. Some recent blog postings will be moved by the moderators to appropriate forums. Thanks! T4.

It would be helpful to have a tool bar, menu, or list of links for selecting another forum from within a forum. The current structure requires the extra step of returning to the forum list.

Does anyone have advice for content in a maple tutorial for calculus students and any math students for that matter? I am doing a tutorial to help students avoid the fear of Maple and try to help them to avoid common mistakes. Any suggestions would be great!

dear all, I want to write a greek letter (tau) in the legend of a figure. how can I do that? thanks!

dear all, how can i move legends from bottom (default) of a figure to the side? thanks!

Hi, I have a problem printing a worksheet under OS X 10.3 (I've tried it with various minor versions of 10.3 and they all behave the same). The worksheet contains a few plots, and when I try to print, the printout stops at the first plot. The plot is not printed, nor is any of the subsequent material. The printer does generate blank pages, though (and it generates the "correct" number of blank pages). So, text up to the first graphic prints, but nothing after that point shows up. If I use Maple's "File / Print Preview" command, it displays a preview with all the worksheet displayed the way it should be.