Ralf, Bill, > Use the tools at hand and build something that can actually compete > with current CAS (plural). We fight with the future and haven't even > reached the present.
This isn't a competition, at least in my mind. My view is that this is the early development of the science of computational mathematics. Thus I see no reason to try to compete with existing systems. Besides, MMA and Maple clearly have better resources. Chasing them is a never ending task. The science is bigger than they imagine. But why should we bother thinking about an "assume" facility, which is clearly wrong, when we can do research in provisos? Why worry about matching their symbolic (as opposed to algebraic) abilities when there are clear advantages to an algebraic approach? Why encourage the construction of more dead code when it is clear that code needs extensive documentation to live? Why not raise our standards to struggle with proving algorithms correct rather than handwave at the problem? Why not change the expectations so that computational mathematics papers are expected to be literate? The future need not be a linear projection of the past. Henry Ford didn't breed faster horses. We can shape our future in fundamentally new ways. Look to the 30 year horizon and imagine. Tim _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
