[Aldor-l] [wdjoyner at gmail.com: Re: FW: oscas axiom draft]

Fri Mar 23 15:28:35 EDT 2007

Dear Emil,

Yes, we should ahve some news about this next week I expect.
Sorry I can't write more... I'm leaving for the airport in 10 minutes.

-- Stephen

On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 12:50:12AM -0400, Emil Volcheck wrote:
> Stephen and Aldor folks,
> 
> The next issue of Communications in Computer Algebra will have
> an OSCAS column devoted to Axiom and Aldor.  Is there any news
> about Aldor going open source that could be mentioned before
> this goes to press?  Right now there is just a somewhat vague
> statement on the website that it is coming soon.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Emil Volcheck, Chair
> ACM SIGSAM
> http://www.sigsam.org/
> 
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from David Joyner <wdjoyner at gmail.com> -----
> 
> 
> From: David Joyner <wdjoyner at gmail.com>
> To: Bill Page <bill.page1 at synthesis.anikast.ca>
> Subject: Re: FW: oscas axiom draft
> Cc: daly at axiom-developer.org,
> 	Waldek Hebisch <Waldemar.Hebisch at math.uni.wroc.pl>,
> 	Gabriel Dos Reis <gdr at cs.tamu.edu>,
> 	Martin Rubey <martin.rubey at univie.ac.at>,
> 	Gregory Vanuxem <g.vanuxem at wanadoo.fr>,
> 	Emil Volcheck <volcheck at acm.org>
> In-Reply-To: <00f501c76bcc$023f6d00$6900a8c0 at asus>
> 
> 
> Here is the second draft, which I think addresses the comments
> (thank you!) of Bill and Tim. I'm sending it out as a link
> so it doesn't end up clogging up your mail box:
> http://sage.scipy.org/tmp/oscas-cca2.pdf
> Again, please be as critical as you want!
> 
> - David
> 
> 
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
> On 3/21/07, Bill Page <bill.page1 at synthesis.anikast.ca> wrote:
> >Tim, Gaby, Waldek, Martin and Greg,
> >
> >Perhaps you might wish to read and comment on the attached
> >article about Axiom by David Joyner. His article will be
> >published in the OSCAS (Open Source Computer Algebra Systems)
> >SIGSAM newsletter. For comparison see his recent article on
> >Maxima:
> >
> >http://www.sigsam.org/bulletin/articles/157/oscas-maxima-DavidJoyner.pdf
> >
> >My initial reply to David is included below.
> >
> >Regards,
> >Bill Page.
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: David Joyner [mailto:wdjoyner at gmail.com]
> >Sent: March 20, 2007 10:05 PM
> >To: Bill Page
> >Cc: David Joyner; Page, Bill
> >Subject: oscas axiom draft
> >
> >
> >Hi Bill:
> >
> >Do you have any comments on this? Please be as
> >critical as you want! I think it needs more history
> >and maybe some nicer examples. What do you think?
> >
> >The axiom4sage package works fine but clicking on
> >some of the examples caused the HyperDoc to
> >crash, so I had trouble finding examples that way.
> >
> >- David
> >
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: David Joyner [mailto:wdjoyner at gmail.com]
> >Sent: March 21, 2007 7:14 AM
> >To: Bill Page
> >Subject: Re: oscas axiom draft
> >
> >
> >On 3/21/07, Bill Page <bill.page1 at synthesis.anikast.ca> wrote:
> >> David,
> >>
> >> On March 20, 2007 10:05 PM you wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Do you have any comments on this? Please be as
> >> > critical as you want! I think it needs more history
> >> > and maybe some nicer examples. What do you think?
> >> >
> >>
> >> My reaction after a first reading of your draft article is
> >> that it is a brief and somewhat "journalistic" account of the
> >> current status of Axiom. By "journalistic" I guess I mean
> >> something like "lacking in depth but otherwise accurately
> >> reported". :-) Probably both perceptions (that is brief and
> >> lacking in depth) is mostly a result of me being very close
> >> to the subject myself.
> >>
> >> I think the history content of your draft is fine unless your
> >> intention was specifically to address the historical context
> >> of the ScratchPad project at IBM, in which case that probably
> >> desires a paper all of it's own.
> >>
> >> The examples are also quite good. But in order to judge that
> >> better, I guess I would have to understand the point you
> >> would like to emphasise. Right now it seems to suggest that
> >> Axiom can do what most other large scale computer algebra
> >> systems can do and that is certainly correct as it stands.
> >>
> >> But I think that perhaps your article misses one key point
> >> that sets Axiom apart from Maxima, Reduce, Mathematica and
> >> Maple - the design of the Axiom mathematical library. The
> >> SPAD language (and Aldor) was designed specifically to make
> >> it possible to write mathematical algorithms in a flexible
> >> but type-correct manner which today might be referred to as
> >> a polymorphic object-oriented paradigm such as you might
> >> find in Haskell and to a lesser extent in Python and similar
> >> languages.
> >>
> >> I specifically left Mupad out of the above list because it
> >> is a somewhat different story, having explicitly borrowed a
> >> large part of the Axiom concepts of Domain and Category in
> >> the design of it's mathematical library.
> >>
> >> The Axiom library implements a rich hierarchy of abstract
> >> data structure types, from simple Aggregates to Keyed
> >> Dictionaries and Lazy Streams, which collectively make SPAD
> >> a very high level programming language. This is important
> >> for the representation of mathematical objects and the Axiom
> >> library uses these to provide an even richer hierarchy of
> >> algebraic categories, from Sets to FiniteFields and Partial
> >> Differential Rings, etc. Together there are over 1,300
> >> mathematical concepts defined in the library.
> >>
> >> One of the purposes of the HyperDoc component of Axiom was
> >> to make it possible to search and navigate this large and
> >> tightly inter-related library.
> >>
> >> If one is interested in history, it is hard not to notice
> >> that both of these developments - the SPAD language and the
> >> HyperDoc browser - predated contemporary interest in these
> >> subjects by almost two decades.
> >>
> >> Actually it is this aspect which strongly attracted me to
> >> Sage since to some extent Sage seems to be re-inventing (or
> >> at least re-implementing) a lot of the same library structure
> >> in Pythonic form. I really hope that by providing Axiom as
> >> an external package for Sage, some of this early experience
> >> will eventually influence the evolution of Sage.
> >>
> >> > The axiom4sage package works fine but clicking on some
> >> > of the examples caused the HyperDoc to crash, so I had
> >> > trouble finding examples that way.
> >> >
> >>
> >> The axiom4sage-0.1 package is based on an early version of
> >> the new 'build-improvements' branch of Axiom development.
> >> I chose this branch because one of it's main goals was to
> >> enable building of Axiom on a much wider range of systems
> >> and that seemed most compatible with the goals of Sage.
> >> But there is a new sub-branch development called wh-sandbox
> >> which corrects many problems such as the HyperDoc crashes
> >> that you experienced. It is my intention to release real-
> >> soon-now a new axiom4sage-0.2 package which is based on
> >> wh-sandbox. Eventually all of this will become mainstream
> >> Axiom development at which point I would hope to provide
> >> an official "axiom4sage-1.0" package for Sage.
> >>
> >> I am a little concerned that your impressions of Axiom are
> >> filtered by accessing Axiom through the Sage interface.
> >
> >These are great comments!
> >
> >I am running the axiom in
> >.../sage-x.y/local/axiom/target/x86_64-suse-linux/bin/axiom
> >from the command line - no SAGE interpreter (AFAIK).
> >
> >> axiom4sage is a full version of Axiom but the current Sage
> >> interface only exposes the Axiom interpreter in a manner
> >> that makes it appear superficially similar to Maxima.
> >> I am hoping that I somehow find the time to improve the
> >> Axiom interface in Sage to better exploit the underlying
> >> similarity between many Sage classes and Axiom domains;
> >> and going even further, to expose the Axiom compiler and
> >> the SPAD language to Sage programmers.
> >>
> >> Anyway, you were probably more interested in my direct
> >> criticism of your article than an oratory on my plans and
> >> hopes for the relationship between Axiom and Sage. :-)
> >> To that end I would recommend that you include in your
> >> article at least one example of SPAD coding and a few
> >> comments on the Axiom mathematical library.
> >
> >Will do.
> >
> >>
> >> Let me now give your article a second more careful reading
> >> and I will try to get back to you in the next few days
> >> with some more specific suggestions.
> >>
> >> BTW, would you have any objection if I were to forward a
> >> copy of your article and my comments to some of the other
> >> Axiom developers, specifically Tim, Gaby and Waldek? I
> >
> >
> >Please do!
> >
> >
> >> suspect that Tim Daly especially might have a somewhat
> >> different orientation and therefore a different reaction
> >> to your article than I do.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Bill Page.
> >
> >
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> 
> -- 
> Emil Volcheck
> volcheck at acm.org
> http://acm.org/~volcheck