[Axiom-developer] Re: Hyperdoc

[Martin Rubey]

address@hidden writes:

> Martin,
> 
> >> This isn't a competition, at least in my mind. 
> 
> > You are quite wrong here, I think
> 
> Hmmm. Well the only hope that we would have in a competition would be
> to drive a "standardization" campaign. All of the systems should
> deliver the same answers to the same input (modulo syntax). This would
> make systems into commodities.  Since commodity-based products are
> chosen on price Axiom would have a clear advantage.

So, what are you going to compare the functionality of the summation algorithms
Mathematica has with? (developed at RISC)

What are you going to compare the functionality of the MuPAD expression domain
with? (developed at Paderborn)

What are you going to compare GFUN, MGFUN and all the powerful packages for
asymptotics developed for Maple with (INRIA)

This is only the combinatorics world.

The only chance axiom has is to attract new contributors, and the way to do
that is, I believe,

* to have good support given on the mailing lists

* strive for easy installation and good portability

* to have a usable online help

* write good code instead of talking about writing excellent code.

I think, the easiest way to put off people is to discuss what great things one
will do in the future.

> I do think that there should be standard answers that we should expect from
> every system. That is the notion behind the CATS (Computer Algebra Test
> Suite) idea. So far I've seen no-one who has even cared enough about
> standards to bother to comment on the idea.

Do you realize that I'm trying hard to get somebody to port AldorUnit to Axiom?
If we had this, writing tests would be fairly trivial, i.e., reduced to the
mathematics.

> > In any case, since we are probably both continuing on our own, maybe
> > you could still tell me how to get users, uses, dependents and depends.
> 
> I'll look at this. 

This would be really great.

> These cannot be derived from the databases but require a running axiom
> image. Do you happen to know where the code is that computes this
> information? I know its in there somewhere but I don't know off the top of my
> head.

No I don't.  Perhaps Waldek knows about it (I don't whether he is going to read
this thread, so it might be better to ask him directly), since he made it work
in wh-sandbox.  As you know, in gold it does still not work.


Martin