Non-computational software useful to mathematicians

I like Asymptote for making pictures.


This is my short list of math related software not used for computing. I made an effort to list software in descending order with respect to the frequency of use. I left out $\TeX$ and my version control system of choice CVS since OP was not interested in those.

  1. A good editor. My choice goes to nvi.

  2. A spell checker like ispell.

  3. Regular expressions for pattern matching/search.

  4. Make utility.

  5. I do not know about you guys but for us who must teach and manage grade books nothing comes close to being as useful as awk.

  6. A good file synchronizer like Unison.

  7. Shell script(sh).

  8. sed.

  9. An e-mail client like mailx.

  10. PostScript language as a page description language for printing but also a tool for teaching geometry classes. Obviously you must have PostScript interpreter on your computer like GhostScript (comes with a viewer) and a good PS manipulation tool like psutils.

  11. A tool for manipulation of PDF files. I like Pdftk.

  12. Python as a glue language and for instance its library Matplotlib for making illustrations.

  13. A good image processing tool like Graphics Magic.

  14. Vectorial drawing program as Xfig.


I like IPE for quickly drawing figures, especially if you want to add TeX/LaTeX.

(Also see: The IPE Wiki)