Oh, Nicolas, thank you very much for your comment. I believe there is currently a big problem. Apart from some people who don't want to use computers for experiments, there are also those who want to use them but do not appreciate that it is not the most trivial task in the world to translate a mathematical concept into a computer program. In some sense mathematics is too vague when it comes to tell the stuff to a computer.
And there are only a few people who understand enough about both worlds (mathematics and computer science) and who can actually implement mathematical concepts in a proper way. Unfortunately, and that is the big problem, it is *not* seen that this "telling the computer" *is* a creative work. People who implement are constantly underappreciated. I would call this "mathematical software crisis". Of course Mathematica and Maple pay programmers who do this "translation", but the result is closed source. This is like being Fermat with his "Last Theorem". I tell you a theorem, but I don't tell you the proof. Ask yourself whether you are willing to use that theorem. Ralf On 03/23/2007 11:49 AM, Nicolas M. Thiery wrote: >> Maybe I didn't express it very clearly: there was *no* interest *at >> all* in the current version of the species program. > > Which really does not come as a surprise to me: only a few persons at > SLC are really doing computations. For the rare ones who do, species > are just one tool among many others. They will only realize its > potential the *day* they will desperately need it directly, because > the standard libraries for dealing with trees, partitions, and friends > won't cover their particular need. > > I don't mean to say that the average SLC thinks your work is useless. > It's more like "it's very good that someone is working on type-D' > schmurtz partition; but that's not my cup of tea". > > On the other hand, those who will truly appreciate your work are the > combinatorial package developers, because those know that this is one > of the most fundamental tool, from which you can build a lot of the > rest. > > Cheers, > Nicolas ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Aldor-combinat-devel mailing list Aldor-combinat-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/aldor-combinat-devel
