[7thaccount]

Your definition of "better" may be wildly different than many. Mathematica is much better in many cases... especially tasks where Mathematica has a built-in function call for something that would be an absolute pain in Python, but worse with respect to price and licensing. I use Python a lot more than Mathematica, but sometimes Mathematica is the best solution.

Your windows/Linux analogy is also not very relevant here. Both are popular in different areas.

[jfoutz]

I think the windows linux analogy is pretty apt. especially around the win95/98 days.

Getting some random laptop and figuring out what kernel mods to enable and hope that the specific chipset revision was supported, or maybe a patch available that might work was, in fact, a lot of bullshit to put up with to get, say, sound.

sympy will do a lot. but you're probably going to have to reach for a big book of integrals, or find a friendly mathematician to identify the equation and possible approaches. Mathematica as a paid product has a lot of time and effort spent avoiding resorting to asking for help. Much much more built in.

As an undergrad or a hobbyist you probably want to stay "lower" and slog through the calculations when you're stuck. This is part of the process of understanding. But as a professional, or a more advanced user, screwing around for a week looking for a solution is a waste of time and expertise. Spring the cash, and move forward immediately.

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but I think there is some nuance that this maybe helps people understand your point.

"Better" really really depends on where you are and what you're trying to do.

[7thaccount]

I don't think many question that open source won't eventually be equivalent or better than Mathematica for computational work. It just isn't for a lot of things in 2024. It might be fully reversed in another 5 years. Agreed everyone's view of "best" is different as I said above.

I will say a really nice thing about Mathematica is consistency.