Maple is a complete programming language designed for working 
Scientists and hence is a very big object. There is much about
Maple which we will not use. Here is a short list of the things we
will use.

1. The Help menu. Maple has its own help system look at the right
hand side of the menu bar. Try typing `plot3d', going to help and
selecting help on plot3d.

2. The collection of commands we will use this semester is quite
small. They include the plotting commands: (type `with(plots)').

plot3d, implicitplot3d, contourplot, spacecurve, gradplot, fieldplot and
to glue two plot together we use display.

These plotting commands have lots of options, here is a list of options
we will use: (not all options apply to all plot commands)

title,axes,numpoints,scaling,shading,style,contours,arrows,orientation,
thickness,color

There are general maple commands we will use

diff,int,evalf,eval,vector,mtaylor,solve

And some commands in the linalg package like dotprod.

3. Most students learning maple find the following somewhat frustrating.

A. Maple can crash at any time, save early and often.
B. The Gui and Maple are not in synch. If you open a saved file it looks
like all the commands have been executed, but actually none have. Also
it looks like the commands have been executed from top to bottom but 
that is not necessarily true.
C. Syntax, maple requires exact typing, a small typo can change everything.
Sometimes Maple will return answer that is complete garbage without
any error message or outward sign that there was any problem. 
D. Echo, maple thinks you know what you are doing. If it doesn't understand
what you have typed, it will echo it and think that you will make it clear
somehow later.
E. Every statement must end with `;' or `:'
F. Multiplication requires a `*' everywhere. It is not 2x or 2 x but 2*x.
It is not (x-1)(x-2) but (x-1)*(x-2). It is not 3xy but 3*x*y.
G. It is `Pi' that is 3.141592... while `pi' is just a greek letter.
H. Neither e nor E is 2.718281828... it is exp(1). Instead of e^x, use
exp(x). [A common error is exp^x but that doesn't work either.]
I. Assignment statements are f:=x^2-3*x+2 and NOT either f= NOR f(x):=.
J. Equations use =, as in x=2*x+2 or `solve({x+y=3,x-y=1},{x,y})'. But
if you omit the equal sign, Maple will often implicitly add `=0' without
telling you. 
K. Horrible things happen if you do something like `x:=7;'. There are
three ways to fix this. (i) Quit and restart. (ii) Type restart. (iii)
type x:='x'; -- note the direction of the quotes is (') and not (`).
If you want the value of f when x is 7 and y is 3 do `eval(f,{x=7,y=3});'.
L. {} are sometimes used to group `solve({x+y=3,x-y=1},{x,y})' {unordered sets}
M. [] are sometimes used to group `plot([x^2,x^3],x=0..1,color=[red,green])'
[ordered lists].
N. Sometimes one of {} or [] will be totally different or might fail. For
example plot({f,g}... will plot two functions, but plot3d([f,g]... will
give an error.
O. Maple knows too much, we know we can't integrate sin(x)/x or exp(-x^2)
from Calculus 2 but Maple says these are Si(x) and erf(x) *sqrt(Pi)/2 which
are just the names Maple gives to these integrals.
P. Maple lives in complex numbers. Solve(x^2+4=0) yields 2*I and -2*I. We
would say x^2+4 is never zero, thinking of x as real.
Q. Maple has a strange notation for roots of polynomials. Try solve(x^4+x+1=0)
and you will get RootOf(_Z^4+_Z+1) which is just x^4+x+1 with x replaced with
_Z.
R. There are standard programing controls like for loops, if then and the
like. While generally not needed for the assignments, they sometimes appear
in projects.
S. The instructor will sometimes use more advanced commands in class without 
explaining them. 
T. We collect these, feel free to suggest your own. Many of these were
suggested by students like yourself. Many of these are frustrations
people have learning a first programming language, so students without
a programming language sometimes have a harder time. But conversely,
they will have an easier time with their programming course. [Most people
taking Calculus 3 have a major that requires a computer programming class.]
However most students `get it' in a couple of weeks, and all get it after
about 6 weeks.

U. But the real secret is not the experience, but having the correct attitude
towards solving these kind of syntax problems.