[Axiom-developer] RE: Lisp Packages and Axiom

[Page, Bill]

On Wednesday, December 07, 2005 3:46 PM Tim Daly (root) wrote:

> ...
> the lisp package level is the wrong place to segment the algebra.

I agree.

> 
> bill and I (long ago) had an ongoing discussion of the problem
> of organizing the algebra but it's hard on so many levels.
> 

My current philosophy is that the best way to organize Axiom's
algebra is to let it organize itself. To do this we have to think
about the best ways to "navigate" quickly and easily through such
a large complex structures as the Axiom algebra library. Once that
is done, it will be possible for many people to gain experience
and an appreciation for this structure.

I think the we already have pretty good tools to do that on our
desktops - your web browser. What we have to do is make more and
more of Axiom's algebra code accessible and hyperlinked. Although
Axiom's library is pretty big, it is really *not so big* by the
standards of the web. And a lot of people are gaining a lot of
experience with what information is available and how it is
structured over the web.

Maybe some kind of graphical visualization tools might help
(such the TouchGraph interface on the Axiom Portal), but I think
that just like in the case of the web, such graphics, while they
are pretty and grab our attention, in the end they are not all
that helpful.

I now think organizing Axiom's library should not be a constraining
kind of "classification" exercise, but rather one that facilitates
it's free and open development by increasing (by several orders of
magnitude, if possible) the accessibiliy of the material.

Regards,
Bill Page.