On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 12:09 AM, Julien Puydt <julien.pu...@laposte.net> wrote: > Le 08/11/2011 07:37, Jonathan Bober a écrit : >> I don't know enough about software packaging to know if sage is >> _really_that different, but it is quite complicated and large, and it >> may take a big coordinated effort to get sage into every different >> distributions package management. And sage needs to work on old >> releases. It is possible to update mpfr on Ubuntu 8.04 without adding an >> extra repository? > > Sage developers shouldn't care. If you start down that road, you'll soon end > up putting in your own libc, your own libc++, your own editor, your own > C/C++/whatever compiler, etc.
I disagree with your prediction. We started down that road over 6 years ago, and we don't include our own libc, libc++, or editor in Sage. (We include a Fortran compiler on OS X, since Fortran on OS X is a mess.) > Making sure the deps for the sage package they have built are available is a > packager's problem -- not a developer's. [...] > You seem to think that you're arguing against my point, but I don't think > that's really the case : in fact, you explain well how important it is to > have sage handily distributed. And I fully agree, it's mango flesh. Then you > lightly conclude that sage=distribution+program is the only way out of. And > there I fully disagree : you've just swallowed the mango's kernel! > > Having a sage=distribution organisation has the problems I already pointed > out ; let me remind them: > - developers use too much of their time worrying about deps instead of > making things better ; In fact, it is the opposite. If we didn't have our own distribution, developers would spend way more time worying about deps. Because of having a distribution, developers usually don't have to worry about deps. That's Jon's point. Much more likely is that without our own distribution, there would be no developers, so indeed developers wouldn't spend their time worrying about deps (since Sage wouldn't exist). > - sage is too big to fit in the newer smaller computing devices available > today and tomorrow ; If that is true (and I don't believe it is), then the same is true for all of Sage's direct competitors: Mathematica, Maple, and Matlab. > - sage doesn't integrate well with distributions. > > The sage=program paradigm would fix those cons. And the anecdot you describe > could still be solved. It already is, in fact. In France, teachers are > choosen through some kind of competition. One of the tests for future math > teachers makes use of computers. You'll find here > http://clefagreg.dnsalias.org/ a distribution aimed at them. And in fact, > several distributions, to be installed on a usb key and booted, precisely > because the students may not have administrative rights on the machines they > have access to. There used to be a sage variant, which is still mentioned, > but I don't find it on that page. It was optional in part because of size > issues : the key was already choke-full with math-oriented stuff... which > sage duplicates! > > Oh, and did I mention that my ARM port takes two days to compile? Having > sage=distribution, and a source-based one... definitely isn't a good > long-term solution! > > So basically, the sage=program paradigm makes things work better, and I'm > still looking for a *good* reason why people think sage *must* be a > distribution. > > Snark on #sagemath > > PS: I still want to remind that I'm not asking for an overnight switch or a > revolution. What I want is people to : > > 1. be conscious of the matter ; > 2. let little steps in the right direction happen ; > 3. not go in the way by adding careless pitfalls... > > so that when time is ripe, the switch will be easy. Many of us are absolutely 100% opposed to getting rid of what we currently have. However, I see no reason that you can't *also* make a version of Sage that has the properties you want. The Gentoo people do that, the Mandriva people do that, Burcin with his Gentoo-prefix thing is doing that, and it was even done for Debian once by Tim Abbot. Do it. -- William > > -- > 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 > -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- 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
