Re: [Axiom-mail] downloading sources stale?

[Oliver Kullmann]

----- Forwarded message from Oliver Kullmann <address@hidden> -----

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Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 17:13:11 +0100
From: Oliver Kullmann <address@hidden>
To: Bill Page <address@hidden>
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Subject: Re: [Axiom-mail] downloading sources stale?
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On Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 09:30:43PM -0400, Bill Page wrote:
> On 8/2/07, Oliver Kullmann <address@hidden> wrote:
> > I've read through the axiom-book, and it looked quite good, until
> > I realised that this anti-syntax like in python is used: That's
> > a show-stopper. In principle, of course, such indentation-games
> > should be only part of the user-interface, and one should be
> > able to go to the level of the "real syntax" and use brackets
> > as usual (or treat it as a different user interface)
> >  --- but unfortunately I have never seen it, and so I
> > fear that also Axiom only accepts input in that indentation-format?
> >
> 
> What is "anti-syntax"? What show does Python stop?

I need a programming language, not some input-language for some system.
My perspective is likely not usual for users of a computer-algebra-system:
I'm looking solely for a very powerful programming language for prototyping,
used within the research-platform on generalised satisfiability/constraint 
problems
I'm creating; since mathematics is the most general environment, when I'm
thinking of a "computer-algebra-system", I actually mean a powerful programming 
language
with easy access to all sorts of mathematical concepts and computations.

And for that Aldor seems to be a rather natural candidate.

By the way, speaking of needs: The one part which I couldn't find in the
documentation on Axiom, and which I actually mostly need, is graph theory
(and hypergraph theory)? I was hoping for a library with hundreds of
graph-theoretical algorithms, and where you can construct all sorts
of graphs (and related matrices) ... :-(

I would guess that here really the concept of "abstraction" becomes problematic:
Especially what the concepts (the abstract data types, or "categories" in the
Axiom sense) for hypergraph theory are is highly problematic (when I'm speaking
of "satisfiability problems" above, then in a certain sense I mean generalised 
hypergraph
problems; so I have experience with creating the foundations for that field, and
I'm struggling now for many years with it).
But graph theory is much more focused, so here one would hope to find something?

Oliver

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