Maplets - E-book Review - Young Adult Review

Kliatt, May, 2002 by Thomas Downey

Waterloo Maple. c2002. Add-on package for Maple 7. Available for download from www.mapleprimes.com. Free for Maple customers who subscribe to Waterloo Maple's Extended Maintenance Plan. SA

There are many powerful mathematics software packages available today that can do much more than even sophisticated graphing calculators. However, one of the problems with using these packages is the user interface. Maple, like other math software, is based around a text-based command line interface where the user types mathematical expressions and the software returns a response. The issue lies in the power of these packages; as the software becomes more flexible and capable, the list of commands becomes longer and the command-line interface becomes more complex and difficult to learn. This is not as great an issue for frequent users as it is for casual users. Maplets provides a partial solution to this dilemma. Maplets enables you to build dialogue boxes and point-and-click user interfaces to functions within Maple. For example, a teacher could quickly build a user interface to some functions in Maple that help students explore a topic, without the students ever having to know the Maple command language. Maplets are quite easy to create and can range from simple dialogue boxes for entering numbers and expressions to complex interfaces with graphs, sliders, check boxes, and drop-down menus.

The Maplets package is essentially an extension to the Maple command language. You create Maplets using these extensions to Maple and other users can then run them within Maple. While Maplets use Java technology, they are not stand-alone Java applets (i.e., like those you can create with Geometer's Sketchpad); Maplets still require Maple to run on a computer. However, it does not require any knowledge of Java to create new Maplets.

Maplets is available for download to Maple customers who subscribe to Waterloo Maple's Extended Maintenance Plan and includes the Java Runtime Environment 1.2.2 (I experienced problems when trying to run Maplets with JRE 1,3 or 1.4, although Waterloo says it should work with both of these). I recommend Maplets to existing Maple customers who want to expand the use of Maple to a wider range of students. Thomas Downey, Math Teacher, Rivers School, Weston, MA