Hi Harald, I am answering your post last because it will take the most time :)
On Dec 21, 5:18 pm, Harald Schilly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > hi, I'm not a developer, just interested in sage, i don't speak for > the development team - I only wanted to point out that there is this > unique possibility of a webinterface which would make it somewhat > easier. Sure, but the access issue is orthogonal to the operating system we run on. > On Dec 21, 1:18 pm, mabshoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > dortmund.de> wrote: > > [begin rant] Well, we support OSX, too, and that isn't exactly Open > > Source either. > > for me the same holds true for osx, but since it is unix like, porting > is easier. Ok, we certainly agree on that one. About the porting being easier: in relative terms: sure, but Apple's environment isn't much more than "unix like" at the best. Even their Unix 2003 certification doesn't change that. Ironically 10.5 broke a lot of code for idiotic reasons. > > I could bash Apple for another couple paragraphs... > > I hate the narrow-minded ipod hype, kills competition +1 > > firefox > > i was actively involved in OpenOffice, which is also a good example. > > > I am a huge supporter of Linux and Open Source in general,... > > me, too. using linux more or less since 1998. > > > What is the point in telling people not to use Windows, but to lock > > them into Linux or OSX on the other hand? > > I'm just telling that there is the possibility of using sage on > windows without having to install it there, because in the > surroundings of an institute (first post suggested this to me) getting > a pc with linux is easy. at least here where i work. I worked as a sysadmin in the math department in Dortmund and there we run Linux, Solaris and OSX. The only people with Windows were secretaries [moving to OSX slowly] and the teaching department. But the teaching department was inflexible enough on one hand, but had enough cloud on the other hand to force the use of Windows in the computing pools. I got the main pool converted to Linux, but now that I am gone they will move back to a Windows centric solution with SunRays + Windows Terminal Servers. Go figure. > Maybe my assumptions are wrong, because here where I work, university > of vienna, mathematics department, linux is even fully supported by > our centralized IT-department. In the mathematics institute, linux > users are about 80% - and nobody is anxious about using it. The pc > labs for students, about 150 PCs, dual boot linux and windows with > linux as default. no problems there, too. Therefore I'm used to an > other environment. Sorry for my wrong mindset. No, don't apologize. But you need to look outside those institutions who "get it". Certain countries in Europe are very different in that way and also way ahead on Linux adoption, but it is my impression that in the US things are still a little behind the curve if you look at the average picture. > > Just ask for example the Singular team if they > > want a 64 bit native port of their application using MSVC. I can > > assure you that they would be quite happy if somebody did the work. If > > things work out as planned on my end I will certainly try to make that > > happen. In the end we will all win if Sage and its components work > > well on *all* operating systems. > > Great, but, this is just one component and for me this sounds like a > Singular project. sage only uses the result. That's my point of view, > sorry. What is currently standing in the way of an MSVC port is pexpect and libSingular. That isn't general knowledge. > > > The vast majority of users on the desktop use Windows and do not have > > access to Linux or OSX. > > The vast majority of users on the desktop give a damn of calculating > anything!! ;) Did you forget a "not" in there? > > Microsoft will be *the* dominating desktop > > operating system for easily the next decade. > > yes, no doubt about that > > > While the install base of > > Linux is growing quicker in relative terms the absolute increase of > > Windows desktops each year *dwarfs* the Linux desktop install base. > > If you translate it from absolute numbers into each market share, i > think the picture is different. I disagree :) > Here at my department windows users > have to excuse when they use it and send wrong formatted text files > (latex). > I am in the hope that the scientific community is more "open" to new > stuff. The university environment is different in that regard, but regional differences also play a part (see above) > [ ... running ... ] > > I don't see the need for such an extreme view of competition. If there > are 98% happy with buying windows, being passive users and being > experts at software-firewall-workarounds-registry-hacking-anti-virus- > xyz - have fun. They are also happy buying "state of the art" software > like mathematica or matlab. > But they must be saved from their utter state of ignorance :) > > > To get somewhat closer to on-topic again: Another target group for > > Sage is the general educational sector [by which I mean high schools > > and non-major math college education, not professional mathematicians, > > graduate students in math and so on] > > Well, good point. > Since about nearly two years ago I was giving a lot of math tutoring > lessons for that group. age 16+-2. > There were also those who are using mathematical software in their > education - and that was the first time ever i have seen the reality > behind that! There a classes full of laptops, each one with > mathematica for school (some simplified syntax + reduced commands) - > and nobody is able to use it. > After 3 month of education in school, they solved linear equation > systems (2 with 2 variables) in that way, that they wrote both > equations in mathematica, calculated the result by hand, and typed the > result back into the notebook. (i was tutoring three of them from the > same class, so this is not a single sample) Their teacher was not > aware how this could be done in mathematica and nobody had the idea to > open the documentation and look up the solve command. > i was totally confused!!! > And i definitely don't want to know how much wolfram res. was paid. > (The same happened a year earlier, this time with derive. But there > was slightly more knowledge about that, but still solving by hand) Yep, you aren't too far from my experience with Students and mathematical software. > Therefore, if [EMAIL PROTECTED] should work, there must be an entire project > assigned to that. > There must be somebody who understands sage's internals to help those, > who teach sage with a pedagogical background, because there needs to > be a feedback to the developers. Then a lot of good documentation, > with many examples, screenshots, handbook for teachers, scripts, ready- > to-use notebooks and so on. Just telling them that sage uses a > slightly modified python main loop for entering commands which call > everything written in the references is not enough! I'm also thinking > for example of a learning path, as a SCORM package - ready to import > in something like claroline (http://www.claroline.net) > Since the current adoption of sage in schools is exactly 0, this > should be done right from the beginning. > > So, in my point of view, this education target needs a lot of work and > time. > (at first, there have to be user accounts, managed by LDAP and so on, > admin interface, teacher-admin-interface, permissions ...) Without a doubt. We need to deliver a slick, well working configuration "out of the box". But we will get there if people care. > > ... but we have to > > work with the situations that is often called "reality", > > exactly, and the reality is, that some marketing+lobby effort is > seemingly enough to end in a f****up situation where nobody knows how > to use the software. that's nothing i want to see again. > sorry for my ideological ambitions! :), I feel the same way. > > > As mentioned above I think that cross platform code makes Open Source > > independent of the underlying operating system which is much more > > important than a somewhat purist opinion that excludes the majority of > > the target audience just because they "haven't seen the light yet." > > no, well, that not what i have wanted to say. more choice is always > better, but in my opinion there a sacrifice. > > > This rant is not intended to flame you, > > thx ;) > > > ... because they can > > use all those cool Open Source applications like Firefox on Windows. > > The vast majority of users will finally see that Open Source works > > because of Firefox, not be kept on Windows because they can use it > > there. They may switch, they may not switch, but at least they might > > have learned something in the process. > > yes, but on the other hand the need to switch from win to linux is > gone. Many people don't even feel the need to switch. They just want to solve problems. But as with anything the vast majority of people are ignorant about the finer details of software and as long as they can push a mouse around and send email in HTML because then the fonts are so colorful and pretty they are happy [this is an exaggeration of course :)]. We live in a sad, sad world in that respect. People like you and me made the conscious decision that Linux is "better" in some metric, but we are in a minority and we will remain so in the short term, too. I personally don't buy the argument that providing people with Open Source applications on Windows will take away their incentive to switch, those user's don't even know [or understand] that there is an alternative at all. So getting them into contact with Open Source at all is the better way. But this a discussion close to a religious dimension, so I don't expect consensus between us anytime soon. We can certainly agree to disagree. > and yes i understand, you don't see the "but". > i hope they learn something, too - especially to be part of a group of > users who can express their problems/needs and help each other. tit- > for-tat principle, because "help other" means in turn "somebody helps > me" Yep, you are preaching to the choir here. > > > In the end feel free to disagree with me, and many people certainly > > do. Me spending my time on a native Windows port doesn't hurt anybody > > out there, except that there is some cost of opportunity since I > > didn't spend my time on fixing some bug in Sage I could have worked on > > in that time. But it is my experience that porting code exposes bugs > > that will hit you sooner or later on the platform you already run on. > > good, well, than everything is ok and the code quality is increasing. > i just know the situation with "R" a bit (the statistic thing) where > everything is linux centric, but the windows user base is huge. Ok, but I assume R has few windows based developers and Windows people starting to get into R development very much are encouraged to switch to a saner development environment. But that doesn't help the army of Windows users out there. It is a vicious cycle, and somebody needs to make an attempt to break it ;) > they > get ready-compiled packages to install - but the problem is, not > everything is available for linux! so, after singular, you can help > porting R packages - there are thousands ;) Well, you need to get in line with requests :) My time is more or less exclusively spend on Sage and while R has recently become a component the optional R packages don't fall in that scope [maybe later]. But I am certainly willing to help R build better on Windows and I will send a patch if I find any issue that I can fix. But since there are many other issues to fix before I get around to R don't hold your breath. I might actually fix a compilation issue with rpy on 32 bit Solaris this week, but that depends on how much time and energy I have left after attacking Sage on Windows. > h Cheers, Michael --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
