Getting Started with Maple
This guide only contains the bare minimum to get you started with Maple at IIT, and the most common troublesome issues for students in Calculus classes at IIT.
Advice
- Do not struggle for hours by yourself without making progress. Get help.
- If you don't remember something basic, look at newintro.mw for an example.
- Most technical problems can be avoided by following Syntax Tips and Kernel Tips on this page. Also try Maple Help.
Start here
- Right-click here, and save the file "newintro.mw" to the Desktop.
- On the desktop, you should see the file "newintro.mw", with a Maple 13 icon. Double-click on it. Wait for Maple to begin.
- If that doesn't work, find the program Maple 13 and start the program (probably by double-clicking on a maple leaf icon). Wait for Maple to begin. Then, from within Maple, "Open" a file, then click on "Desktop", then open the file "newintro.mw". (If you don't see it, change the file type to "All Files".)
- Go through "newintro.mw". Carefully follow all the directions.
About 20 minutes before your first Maple Lab, review.
Syntax Tips
Maple will be totally confused by "small" errors in syntax, like for example, using curly brackets " { } " when you need square brackets " [ ] ", or using three dots " ... " when you need two " .. ". This is unavoidable, as anyone who has done any computer programming can tell you. And yet the situation is not hopeless. Here's what you ought to do:
- Copy-and-paste whenever possible, since all details should be correct in the examples you've gotten from your instructor. Then, make only small, incremental changes, and do it very carefully.
In this way, you will usually avoid creating errors in the first place.
- DO NOT start changing things at random. Before making changes you need to figure out what's wrong, or at least be able to make an educated guess.
If you can't figure it out, the best thing to do is:
- Get someone else (TA, classmate, instructor, ARC tutor) to look at your work. Often a fresh set of eyes can notice something—like a missing semicolon—that you won't notice after staring at it for a while.
If that fails, your next best choice is to use Maple Help—efficiently. Click here for an example.
Kernel Tips
The other main source of errors comes from not understanding how "the kernel" works. While it's not hard to understand the kernel, you should be okay if you always follow these tips:
- When you get a new assignment, say "Lab1.mws", save a copy of called BiffSmith1.mws (if your name is BiffSmith). Do all your work in this file.
- Add this command:
> restart;
to the beginning of BiffSmith1.mws. - Never use a typical variable name (like x, y, z, i, j, j, k) on the left side of an assignment, and never put a number (3, -1, Pi, etc.) on the right side of an assignment.
Click here for examples, and for an optional brief related discussion of the kernel.
- After you've completed each (sub)section of the assignment, remove all extraneous Maple commands that you ended up not using, and all wrong stuff. But don't remove needed stuff like definitions of a function. Click here to see an example.
All pages listed, for reference
This page [Syntax Tips] [Kernel Tips] [newintro.mw]
Using Maple Help Efficiently: an example
Bad Examples and the Maple kernel
Example: Removing extraneous commands
Also Feedback, and Maple at IIT