On May 27, 11:22 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Richard, I didn't receive this note. Perhaps you can re-send it? Though, I
> should say: this topic toes the line between fact and religion. I'm
> interested to hear your thoughts, but I will tire of the topic quickly, and I
> assume that much of sage-devel will, too. Perhaps you could start a blog and
> people can read about it there?
>
> --tom
>
> On Tue, 27 May 2008, rjf wrote:
>
> > See the response to a small part of this in a separate thread on open-
> > source and proofs (unless the moderator removes that message.).
>
> > I joined sage-devel some time ago, but as [EMAIL PROTECTED], and I
> > haven't figured out how to rejoin it as [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > If you want the FULL response as sent to Tom, you can ask him or me; I
> > asked him to forward it to sage-devel but he, perhaps wisely,
> > declined :)
>
> > The new thread is, I hope, of interest.
>
> > RJF
...........................
Here is what I sent to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" and was not
forwarded to sage-devel, apparently because Tom did not receive it.
Could it be that having been rejected by sage-devel it was not sent on
to other recipients? well, no matter. Now recall that William has
tried to call a moratorium on messages to/from me on this topic, and I
am not terribly interested in continuing it beyond others' interest in
responding. Nevertheless, here is the lost mail from Monday.
I joined sage-devel some time ago, but as [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I guess I have to fix that if this doesn't get posted.
This is from [EMAIL PROTECTED], responding to boothby..
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 5:57 PM
> To: Richard Fateman
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: [Maxima] Fwd: [sage-devel] sage
>
> I'm posting this here and not the maxima mailing list,
> because this has nothing to do with Maxima. Richard, why
> don't you join sage-devel and discuss this stuff here, where
> it's more relevant?
>
>
> On Mon, 26 May 2008, Richard Fateman wrote:
>
> > Mike:
> > thanks for forwarding the message.
> > I suppose WS can't actually post to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> without joining
> > the group.
> >
> > Lots of separate points I'd like to make, here.
> >
> > * Will Sage fail or not? there is abundant historical
> perspective for one or
> > another kind of failure, but that was then, not now, so who
> can tell. I
> > think it is too early to declare Sage a success, though
> that hasn't stopped
> > others. It would be nice to have some definition of success
> or failure to
> > measure.
>
> If nothing else, I use Sage on a daily basis for research,
> homework, and play., so that's one measure of success. It
> seems to make your blood boil, and the Mathematica people
> have expressed concern regarding our mere presence, so that's
> another one. I can't recall the last figures, but downloads
> are pretty high.
>
It may not come through in my mail, but I do not have a problem with
people using Sage for whatever they want. I do have a problem with
claims that seem to me to be based on faulty understanding of computer
algebra systems like Maxima and Mathematica.
I would be quite surprised if Mathematica cares about Sage. My
understanding is that they view their competition as Matlab and Excel,
not even Maple.
>
> > * My expectation is that people who want to access Maxima
> should use Maxima
> > through an interface that supports ALL components of
> Maxima. I do not know
> > if Maxima, viewed through the lens of Sage, will reveal all
> its facilities.
> > This is certainly an issue for users of Maple who see it
> only through the
> > lens of Matlab's symbolic toolkit. Attaching pieces of
> code via pseudo-ttys
> > in Python does not sound like a robust engineering technique.
>
> Yes. If somebody *just* wants Maxima, they will download and
> run Maxima. If they find Maxima's feature set lacking,
> they'll probably find what they need in Sage.
I find this absurd. Consider the set of features S = {features in
Mathematica} - {features in Maxima}.
How many of these features are in Sage? How many will be implemented
in Sage in the near term?
Say, definite integration of special functions in terms of Meier G
functions.
The goal of
> Sage is not to provide a transparent interface to these
> systems (though I'm often surprised at how well the notebook
> performs in this respect), but to be a cohesive system that
> uses the best of each system we include.
... snip ... re open source equivalent for Magma
>
> Every single one of the above fails on the Magma requirement,
> at the very least.
>
I really don't care about Magma. I know that some mathematicians do.
.....
>
> You're taking the word "viable" out of context here.
I don't think so. I'm using William Stein's criterion.
> I can't
> speak for everybody else, but I define "a viable alternative
> to ____" as a system which implements the functionality of
> ____ such that a user of ____ could use it without
> compromising accuracy, correctness, speed, or capabilities.
But then there is no chance of finding a "viable" alternative to
Mathematica or Maple
without ENORMOUS effort, essentially completely reverse-engineering
those programs.
This is quite unlikely to be picked up by some student volunteer.:)
>
> Another note: when you say "but we won't mention them", do
> you mean, "we'll mention them on the third paragraph on our
> website"? Because if you do, then I agree with your
> statement that we don't mention other systems.
Well, to say that Sage uniquely provides a viable free (etc)
alternative to Mathematica,
and then to admit that Sage calls Maxima, a viable free (etc) program
as the principal alternative to Mathematica,
suggests that there is a certain insincerity to the claim that Sage is
UNIQUE in providing that alternative.. free etc.
After all, Maxima is already free, open-source etc, and just as much
an alternative.
>
> some ranting deleted...
>
>.... Are you actually criticizing us for porting
> other projects to previously unsupported platforms? Is this
> "standing on the toes of giants"? Oh, this must be *such* an
> inconvenience to people, that we're making their code work
> better on more platforms!
No, I am not criticizing you for porting your own code or even others'
to other platforms.
But it seems absurd that (for example) you reject Axiom, which has
many nice features and runs
nearly everywhere, free, open-source, AFAIK because you have some
political/philosophical disagreement with it.
Instead of standing on Axiom's shoulders, you stand on its toes. This
is, from a technical standpoint,
simply shameful.
I hope that is perfectly clear now.
>
> > * Instead of finding a remedy to some bug in Maxima or Axiom, or add
> > features that provide value beyond that available in Maple
> or Mathematica,
> > or Magma or Matlab, staff will be devoted to fulfilling an
> essentially
> > political statement about free speech.
>
> Naw. Free speech has nothing to do with it. It's about
> proof: you can't prove a result with Mathematica, since one
> can't readily inspect the source.
This is simply naive bullshit.
You assume that seeing the source code is either necessary or
sufficient for a proof. Can you prove that?
Read the paper by Demillon,Lipson, Perlis, about proofs and social
processes.
How do you know that a program written in python, is correct unless
you prove the compiler/interpreter is correct, the hardware it runs on
is correct down to the gate level, there are no hardware glitches, the
memory is proved, etc. And why would you, a human believe the proof if
it were written down on 2,000,000 pages?
And since your system has components in other languages like C, and
Lisp, and is compiled on various different compilers, on various
different computers, you would have to redo all the proofs for each
environment. And when the C compiler was updated, or a new Pentium
came out, prove it again.
I recall stories that claimed, a few decades ago, big integer
arithmetic software testing programs were used to find hardware bugs
in supercomputers. And you know about the intel divide bug fiasco.
>
> You're just concerned about how we spend our time? My, how
> considerate of you. For your information, the driving forces
> of Sage are as varied as the interests of our developers.
Well, if you have no people working on computer algebra algorithms,
ala Mathematica, that's fine. You can keep mathematics students
writing GUIs, plotting programs, networking code, testing, if that is
what you want.
But then you should stop talking about alternative CAS like
Mathematica as a solved problem, (solved by Maxima)
because you just don't seem to know what you are talking about in
terms of current technology, and are apparently not headed in that
direction for future technology, unless by some miracle a volunteer
reverse-engineers Mathematica, or Maple.
> Technical details are paramount, and discussion on sage-devel
> and irc are, with the exception of dealing with certain
> trolls, about the technical details.
>
>
> We don't expect, or need, your support or enthusiasm. But
> everything that I've seen you write about Sage has been
> angry, insulting, and disrespectful.
I hope it didn't start out that way, but sometimes email exchanges
degenerate.
> Worse, the messages you
> send off-list are downright childish. It doesn't seem
> unreasonable, in an academic environment, to expect a modicum
> of civility. Can we ask that much of you?
Well, sending a frankly critical comment to a mailing list when it is
really directed to a single person about a particular post, seems to
me uncivil. It seems that some people don't feel that way.
If this doesn't get to [sage-devel], please forward it.
RJF
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