Wow, I really didn't expect to open this discussion with that post. > I expect Sage upgrades will slip further down your system admin's priority > list > if they are causing him problems.
Though he's actually quite Sage-friendly, and sounds like he'll do it. The only issue was > > I am really hesitant > > to use this in class when I can't even make it work on my own computer > > properly. > > I don't blame you. Though again, I am personally quite likely to just find a way about it, since I've invested so much in Sage. > =================== From Peter Jeremy =========================== > I am very concerned at this "release it now, we'll make it work later" > mentality. > =============================================================== > The only possible way Sage might get less buggy, is for more people with > similar > views to me, make them known to William. *Perhaps*, if he realises people like > you are reluctant to use Sage for classes because of the bug rates, he might > do > something to address the quality control issues. > Well, in general it seems to me that most Sage bugs come from things/ functionality that didn't exist before, and once they exist people want to start using them. But unlike a commercial system, the only realistic way we have to look for these bugs is for people to use the system. I just don't see how else to do it; I don't think most Sage developers necessarily use the latest bleeding-edge release for day-to- day stuff. For instance, I have a modified R optional package installed on one of my Sage installs, and since getting that to play nice on every new Sage would be tedious and boring, I just keep sage-4.4.4 on my laptop for research only. Similarly for classroom use - one usually uses the same server all semester, so there isn't opportunity to see *new* bugs. > =================================================================== > in a suitably complex system there is a certain irreducible number of errors. > Any attempt to fix observed errors tends to result in the introduction of > other > errors > =================================================================== I think that while there are certainly some bugs that really don't satisfy this, there are plenty of bugfixes that introduce new errors in Sage - it is easily that complex. However, these usually result as a result of uncovering some hitherto non-existent (or possibly non- wrapped) functionality which turns out to have bugs, which will only be uncovered by "real" users. So actually, I find the release early and often mantra to be helpful, because it helps make it better; finding edge cases is much less likely to happen without a full-time team of dedicated staff otherwise. I think that even some randomized test suite is not so likely to find things unless it starts just entering random valid Sage commands, even ones that don't make sense to a "real" user. And I don't think there is a lack of attention to fixing bugs; every release is a bug-fix release. It is also a new-functionality release - which yes, introduces bugs, but not ones that would have even been visible before. - kcrisman -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
