Re: [Axiom-developer] Help needed, was: (Possible) reasons Axiom didn't appeal to SoC coders...

[Martin Rubey]

C Y <address@hidden> writes:

> If I may ask, what applications would they be likely to use Axiom for?

research and teaching.

> Martin, is the most important thing for you to have available a Windows
> binary with the Guess package successfully installed?

Although that would be nice, it won't help too much.  A functional HyperDoc (or
a HyperDoc replacement) is a must, because, how do you expect an MS Windows
user (used to clicking on buttons) to find out how to express and solve an ODE?
I guess, you won't teach him how to use asq or, gasp!, grep?

If you do put together a new windows binary (and: please do!), and if you want
to include my package, please note that its most recent version depends on
several algebra fixes currently only applied to wh-sandbox.

Therefore, I guess it would be more useful (especially for non-windows
developers) to help Gaby and Waldek merge there distributions (although I must
admit that I do not even know what functionality of build-improvements is
missing from wh-sandbox).

Bill writes:

> Tim Daly reported successfully building HyperDoc under cygwin on Windows and
> accessing it via Xming (an X-windows server for Windows).

But didn't he say that it was somewhat non-functional, namely, browse wouldn't
work?

> I think that it is a real possibility to build both HyperDoc and Axiom
> graphics under cygwin in this manner. Cygwin is a "unix emulator" for
> windows. GCL however currently only builds under MSYS/MinGW which a native
> Windows build environment. Requiring both cygwin and MSYS/MinGW to build
> Axiom on Windows is a bit of a heavy requirement but it is possible.

Do you think it would be possible to bundle this up in a (albeit huge) package,
that works more or less out of the box? (However, again: it makes sense only if
HyperDoc browse works)

This would be WONDERFUL!

You see, I'm a bit reluctant to drive people into developing HyperDoc too much,
since what I really want is a bit different. (namely, a HyperDoc replacement
running on any good internet browser, having the functionality of HyperDoc but
moreover understanding documentation written in LaTeX with ALLPROSE / aldoc
conventions.)

But if it is not tooooo big a project, such a bundle would be, again:
WONDERFUL.

Martin