Dear Bill, Bob, Kai, Ralf, *, > What is the size of the unit input transaction? Would one Axiom command per > transaction might be too limiting?
No. > Of course it might consist of multiple lines even for a single command. But > what about multi-line function definitions? What about compiling SPAD code, > versus interactive use? Should we treat a SPAD compile as a unit > transaction? Yes. Well, the compile of one domain or category. If I'm not very mistaken, domains and categories are simply (complicated) function definitions. > What about Axiom commands that do not increment the line counter > such as > > )set output autoload off In fact, )co is also such a command, I think. (I'm very much hoping that in future the interpreter will also be able to handle domain and category definitions...) > > The second part of the discussion is non-mathematical input/output. > > e.g. graphs, diagrams. Can we do the same thing as for mathematical > > output? (e.g. the output contains only data structures and hints, and > > no code?) This requires a graph renderer/manipulator which understands > > the underlying data structure. (e.g. 1-dimensional point set, > > 2-dimensional graph, 3d point set with mesh, etc) "understanding the > > data structure" is a separate problem from "communicating the data > > structure" since the latter can be simply marshaled into an sexp > > or XML data structure. > > > > Furthermore "draw" should really be an alias for "give me a point-set > > approximation". Axiom generates a point-set. The *user-interface* > > must decide what to do with it. > > I am not convinced that a "point-set" language would be adequate > given problems of resolution, scaling, rotation etc. Me neither. But maybe the user interface can ask axiom to produce this or that. As far as I know, this is the way graphics is handled now. Look at view2D.spad and view3D.spad. By the way, SOCK_-GET_-FLOAT doesn't work on linux right now, see bug #161... > > ... let's keep "pamphlet" as our primary format for the > > time being, and convert it. > > Convert it during the build and install process? Continue > to maintain it in the format used now. Right? yes, yes, yes! Though I wouldn't mind if the pamphlet format would change. The philosophy should remain the same! Ralf Hemmecke thought quite a bit about a better documentation format for Aldor, which would also work for Axiom, of course. What is missing currently in the pamphlet format is an environment that briefly documents the domain/package/category and an environment that briefly documents an operation. For HyperDoc, this was done with the +++ and ++ comments. Martin _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
