On Nov 13, 6:32 am, "Johan S. R. Nielsen" <j.s.r.niel...@mat.dtu.dk> wrote: > First of all, I think that such a page put at a prominent place (as > the entry-page for what is now the Tour, perhaps?) will be a good > selling point. You need to hook people before they have read pages of > text, because otherwise most of them will already have continued on. > > > David Kirkby wrote > > There are two separate issues > > > 1) The interface language > > > 2) What the source code is written in. > > This is very true and a big issue! Maybe enough so to deserve having > two info boxes on this suggested "Why Sage"-page. > > I don't think that Python is the perfect language to write mathematics > software with; I would definitely vote on a much more functional > language here, e.g. OCaml or maybe even Haskell. However, this would > cut out so many potential developers, and from this viewpoint, it is a > bad choice for a large-scale open source project like Sage. Python has > many merits like it is easy to learn and has little syntax. Just > trying to imagine writing mathematics algorithms in Java makes my > stomach turn; soo many type declarations and soo many interfaces, all > having to be explicitly named and imported, instead of just "going > with the flow" in the duck-typing of Python (of course, preferably > using the type inference of functional languages, but oh well). The > bad side is then no static validation of anything (like type-checking > and only invoking declared methods and such), which makes it so much > more important to reread, test, double-test, auto-test and re-test all > code -- all the time. But as long as the developers succeed in doing > this well, the users won't see it too much (it makes me worried for > whether there might be a sort of upper limit on how big Sage can grow > while still being stable, though). > > But I digress; my point is that Python IS a selling point _both_ as > the underlying interpreter language (which is so many leagues ahead of > anything in the Ma*-software, simply because of a well-thought, > coherent syntax and standard library) and as the (main?) development > language. The first draws in users who care about ease of programming > (advanced users, teachers and potential developers. I always hated > Maple for its unsystematic syntax and Matlab for its happy-go-lucky > interpreter), and the second thing makes it easier for a user to > transition into being a developer. I personally don't know Cython yet, > but if a feature or a bug I was interested in came up, I would spend a > weekend learning it so I could develop with it on Sage; however, I > might not have cared about learning Cython when I was "only" a Sage > user in the first place. > > Oh yeah, and Eviatar, I just can't get over the fully committed > geekyness of posting the link as ASCII binary X-D That's just plain > cool. > > Johan
:D thanks. I take pride in it. Anyway, I made an updated version (linking seems to work now): http://oi55.tinypic.com/rclh5l.jpg Anyways, I think most of us agree Python is a selling point. In fact, on the front page it says, "It combines the power of many existing open-source packages into a common Python-based interface." I think that makes discussion on whether Sage should be a selling point irrelevant for this thread; maybe more suited to sage-flame (in fact, a thread has already been started there). I made this thread to propose an accessible introductory page, not redefine the goals of the Sage project. Let's please keep that discussion out. -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
