On Tuesday 07 August 2007 18:22, William Stein wrote:
> The number of new downloads of SAGE per week have been roughly
> constant during the last 2-3 months. The growth of SAGE is definitely
> not what I hoped for during my talk at SAGE Days 4. Does anybody
> have any good ideas about how to increase the number of people
> downloading SAGE? My hope is that this question will spark a relaxed
> but enthusiastic and positive open-ended brainstorming thread in which
> a lot of crazy ideas appear.
I've spent some time evangelizing sage to 3 research mathematicians. I
realize the responses below may not be valid given design constraints. But
these are hurdles that the average computer-savvy mathematician needs to
cross before they are going to even consider SAGE a competitor. Here's the
responses I've gotten:
1) "Ugh, a web-based interface": My feeling was that this mathematician felt
exactly as I do about web-based interfaces -- they are always clunky. I'll
admit that the new web interface is *very* smooth, but, it doesn't even begin
to compare to a well crafted native interface.
* What about hot keys for menu items?
* What about syntax highlight?
* What about smart python indenting?
* Why does my browswer not scroll to contain the entire tab complete
list?
* How do I insert a cell with my keyboard?
* Why do the edits shift up/down a pixel or 2 when focus changes?
I don't necessarily mention these things as things to fix -- I honestly
believe that to fix them all would make your javascript horridly
unmaintainable. This not to mention browser compatibility (I'm on firefox of
gentoo). My underlying point here is that the browser interface is
off-putting to many experienced computer users and I don't blame them one
bit. I think it's stunning that the notebook is this good at all because
many web ui's suck far more.
2) "Why does sage install so many things that I already have installed?":
Really I don't think that this is a valid complaint. I totally understand
the reason that sage installs all these things. I'm just pointing out that
many linux users consider this blasphemy. I think the solution is better
advertising about why this design decision was made.
3) "It's not user friendly": I made the mistake of telling this
mathematician that sage uses a mainstream programming language. Of course, I
considered this a huge advantage -- lack of sensible file IO and string
support in mathematica and others have pissed me off for years. These things
mean absolutely nothing to most I've talked to. Even the ugly kludges that
pass as for-loops in other mathematica-style languages don't arouse peoples
understanding! The underlying point I took from this is that real
programming languages scare people. Again, this is a matter of better
advertising (but it does make me wonder if the appeals of sage aren't niche
appeals.)
Ok, I'm sorry if this came off a bit rant-like. I really don't mean it that
way and I consider SAGE god's gift to mathematicians, but I've realized over
the years that the things that make me giddy on a computer mean nothing to
the vast majority of the computer-using public.
Oh, and I agree with Bill --- you want market share, make a native windows
port. Good luck with that!
--
Joel
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