Not that it matters but I'd be in favor of removing libdb.text and comdb.text.
On a more creative note I can think of five potential ways to make IndexCard much more useful. One path is to expand the domain to support full SQL queries of category and domain information (BrowserInformation) or of an external database. One could consider IndexCard as the "bibliography domain" which provides bibliographic reference information with external hyperlinks. Good research always involves bibliographic references. Every domain would have a "biblio" function. Another path is ANKI-style "flash cards" that can be customized to help people remember mathematics and their expression in the command line for a wide range of topics. Most useful would likely be either integration or linear algebra. Each index card would present a working example of each function. Another somewhat more ambitious path would be to come into the 21st century and make it a "cover" for the MCP LLM protocol allowing two-way access for an LLM. That way it would integrate LLM input/output to the system. Fill out an "index card", sent it to the LLM, and present the reply in another "index card". IndexCard would be a "cover" for an underlying MCP. The remaining idea is to integrate LEAN theorems / proofs. IndexCard could provide access to known LEAN theorems that relate to current Catgegories, Domains, Packages, and Functions. A simple example would be group theory related proofs for Category information (e.g. Commutative) or to prove the GCD algorithm used in the system. Just because your only tools are hammers doesn't mean you can't use them to learn to juggle. Tim Tim On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 4:00 PM Waldek Hebisch <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 07:43:10PM +0100, 'Ralf Hemmecke' via FriCAS - > computer algebra system wrote: > > I don´t care much about the old IndexCard. > > > > I know that it appears in the FriCAS book as an example, but I am not so > > happy that it entered the FriCAS library by this name. As Tim said it was > > meant to be a toy domain. If you now turn it in to a more important > domain > > to extract information about the library (which I am in favour of) maybe > it > > would be time to think about a better name. I cannot think of something > good > > at the moment, but IndesCard is definitely to non-telling for my taste if > > that domain is supposed to provide information > > about other FriCAS internals. > > > Well, it is not going to be more important. Simply: > - We need a demo as part of FriCAS book. If IndexCard were removed > we would need a replacement. > - For 30+ years IndexCard was the only documented way to get > information about constructors and operations from Spad > programs. Some users may depend on it. > > I hope that for retrieving information about constructors and > operations BrowserInformation will be much better. But I not > for deliberatly breaking old code without any warning. > > The two reasons above means that I would like to have working > IndexCard. As I wrote I have now a preliminary version that > works on top of BrowserInformation. > > I would prefer that people writing new code use BrowserInformation, > but at least for now I do not want to remove IndexCard. But > I want to remove (most of) Boot that was called by IndexCard. > > Actually, ATM in my private version of FriCAS IndexCard and a > helper for checking backward compatiblity in BrowserInformation > are the only users of 'libdb.text' and 'comdb.text'. Once I > integrate new IndexCard into my private version I will be > able to remove old database support from it. There are > probably still months to the moment when new code is mature > enough to include it in the trunk, but some pieces (probably > a new IndexCard) may go in earlier. > > -- > Waldek Hebisch > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the > Google Groups "FriCAS - computer algebra system" group. > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/topic/fricas-devel/Y2nhGiAriL0/unsubscribe. > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to > [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fricas-devel/aXp42weQsnhFPc0q%40fricas.org > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FriCAS - computer algebra system" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fricas-devel/CAJn5L%3DJzc0kOfvYuLABWksPMfP1V4DcHVrnx5fCRmuTGNLRAcA%40mail.gmail.com.
