[Warning: The following contains mostly philosophy and opinions. If your interest is purely technical, you all know where the delete key is on your keyboard... ]
On April 13, 2007 8:33 PM Ondrej Certik wrote: > ... > > So it's almost certain that Python is going to be around for > couple of years, but in the 25 years horizon, it's actually > pretty clear it will not, at least not in the current form. It feels rather odd to me to be able to point out that Lisp is well past that original 25 year horizon and it is still essentially the same language as it was - dialects and various libraries not withstanding. > However, if my program [SymPy] is not going to be used anyway > in 25 years, or only marginally, I prefer to have something > good today and attract people today, not tomorrow. When I started with the Axiom project (nearly 5 years ago) I was at first a little amused by Tim Daly's insistence that one should look at Axiom as something with (at least) a 30 year horizon. That didn't seem credible to me at all. But then what we are really talking about here is mathematics and many of the algorithms that we are implementing in our computer algebra systems are actually based on mathematics that was developed as much as a *hundred* years earlier. Perhaps Lisp is a little like that - more mathematics than a trendy programming language. So I wonder about Axiom. Are the design principles on which it is based firm enough to be relevant over the long haul? Perhaps. I have serious doubts that the principles on which Maple and Mathematica are based will stand this long. In fact during the time I have known them, they both seem to be converging toward Axiom. And here Axiom is now, nearly 30 years after it's inception. But then Maxima (formerly Macsyma) is a system of the same time period as Axiom and it is still alive today. We need something else to explain that. > Do you have some estimate, how successful Axiom was in 1980s, > when lisp was quite more popular, than it is today? It is difficult to talk about "popularity" because the situation (as you say) was very different. But actually there are probably more lisp programmers today then there was then just like there are more horses in North America now then there was prior to the era of mechanization of agriculture motor vehicles. Axiom was certainly one of the premier computer algebra systems of it's time - because it was (almost) the only computer algebra system. And if you will permit me to distinguish between computer algebra and symbolic computation, then it is still (almost) the only computer algebra system. It was and still ahead of it's time. > It's an unfair comparison, because something like SymPy wouldn't > be possible without the internet and open source and if I lived > in 1980s, I wouldn't even started anything like that, because > I wouldn't have means of spreading it to people and especially > getting anyone interested. But I think it is a fair comparison because the same things are true about Axiom. Axiom would not be here today if it was not for open source and the Internet. In fact nearly 30 years of research effort was saved largely because it became possible to make it public rather than simply die like a lot of other commercial software packages. > Today's situation is incredible - it's enough to write a code, > put it on the web, create some documentation and it will start > living on its own if it is good enough, because people will > find it in Google. > I agree it is incredible but I have serious doubts about the rest of your claim. I don't know what "good enough" means. I am afraid that your model of development means just a lot of people re-inventing the same thing in essentially the same way according to the current fashion. I think that is a form of entertainment but not real progress. The way Axiom started was probably very similar expect for the much smaller scale. It exists because a small number of people where able to interest a larger number of people and a company with enough resources like IBM. We are incredibly rich in resources these days, but the critical part is still finding the right people with really new ideas. On the other hand, Axiom as a project with a 30 year time horizon is very different. The system design on which we are working today is essentially the same as the one originally envisaged nearly 30 years ago. Besides saving 30 year of intellectual effort from the trash bin, we are mostly trying to carry on the same programme: to encode more mathematics in the form that can be manipulated by a computer and at the same time trying to "sell" the basic idea to people who have not yet realized that the problem it is trying to solve even exists! I like Python and I am glad that people are interested in it, but I prefer to focus on the larger picture in order to see how it fits into the long term. And I think that Python, SymPy, Sage and Google's summer of code all have a role to play even if that ends up by just getting more people interest in the main subject - computer algebra. Regards, Bill Page. _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
