[Axiom-developer] MEGA conference

[root]

Bertfried,

Patrizia Gianni sent me this link to the MEGA conference
(http://mega.dm.unipi.it)
Effective Methods in Algebraic Geometry

You'd be much more suited to this conference than I would.

There has been some motion, although glacial, on the clifford algebra
work on my part. I bought a book "Clifford Algebras with Numeric
and Symbolic Computations" and have been staggering my way thru a
couple papers. Can't say that I "get it" yet but I'm trying.

Patrizia,

Bertfried is an expert in Clifford Algebra and is more likely a 
suitable person for the conference.

I'm excited about the AJCA work. Once it exists please let me know
where I can reach it. I'd love to try it since, as you know, the whole
idea of an active journal is dear to my heart.

On the axiom developer mailing list we've been discussing a generalization
of the idea calling it a "doyen". See
http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/mathaction/Doyen

The idea in a nutshell is to create a scientific platform with a few features
   1) boots from CD 
      a) allows distribution at conferences
      b) allows people to try it without installing to hard disk
      c) allows installation to hard disk
   2) supports a range of scientific software in a common manner
      a) "browser" style front-end with scientific plugins
      b) math (axiom, reduce, maxima), science (molgen, feyncalc, R, etc)
      c) free and open source software
   3) has a mother/daughter network arrangement
      a) doyen CD is a "daughter" with standard software
      b) doyen website is a "mother" with downloadable software, papers, etc.
      c) allows private collaboration on literate programs thru the website
      d) allows public publication of literate programs on website 
      e) "click to install" from website to local host
   4) uses a "wiki" front end
      a) allows remote changes to websites (the "wiki" software)
      b) provides a wiki as a local common front-end to science software
      c) shared architecture makes website-local access seamless
      d) allows remote, shared development of literate programs

The dream idea is that you can go to a conference (e.g MEGA) to present
a paper. Everybody at the conference got a copy of the Doyen CD in their
conference materials. The CD can be booted on any machine without affecting
hard drives (so-called "Live CDs" like KNOPPIX).

You give your talk from the website. People can click on your literate 
program paper on the website, have it automatically downloaded, installed
and ready to run while you are giving your presentation. Thus the audience
can "execute" your paper while you give your talk.

Notice that this is not specific to Axiom but is useful for general
science programs.

Tim