Re: [sage-devel] Re: What was/is/will be the purpose of maintaining the Sage distribution?

[Dr. David Kirkby]

On Thu, 27 Apr 2023 at 15:49, Michael Orlitzky  wrote:

>
> The test suite can take another full day to run -- some of
> that is useful, but a lot is not. This is the biggest impediment to the
> use and development of sage on an old system.


To me at least, it would be unwise not run the test suite.

If you are choosing to use 15-20 year old hardware, you can not reasonably
to handle a large modern program like Sagemath. More modern machines than
that get thrown in skips. 

Dave.

> --
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Re: [sage-devel] OT: google's chatbot Bard is at https://bard.google.com/

[Dr. David Kirkby]

On Sun, 26 Mar 2023 at 17:26, Georgi Guninski  wrote:

> Google's chatbot Bard is at https://bard.google.com/
>
> Bard isn't available in my country.


You can always spoof where you are with the Tor Onion browser


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Re: [sage-devel] where is rpy2

[Dr. David Kirkby]

On Sat, 25 Mar 2023 at 16:29, William Stein  wrote:

> OK, I realize I need to follow the directions above (about ubuntu),
> and then I get r dev installed.


When I installed R on Ununtu I found the version was several years old. I
eventually installed it from the source code which is quite a hassle as it
has so many dépendances  - but I guess that you know that.

Dave
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Re: [sage-devel] Problem building sage 9.2 on CentOS 7.9

[Dr David Kirkby]

Thank you. I never see thata. I'm using a laptop to connect to the 
workstation, via a WiFi link, which might be the issue. 

I was rather looking for a "stable release", rather than a release 
candidate, as in general software at least, the stable releases have less 
features, but less bugs. But maybe that's not appropriate here. 

You may recall me from years ago porting Sage to Solaris. I have all but 
given up with Solaris now, and are interested in learning some number 
theory. 

Dave 

On Friday, 16 April 2021 at 16:20:08 UTC+1 dim...@gmail.com wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, 16 Apr 2021, 15:36 Dr David Kirkby,  wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm fairly certain I built 9.2 on this machine before, but it failed this 
>> time. 
>>
>> Dell 7920 
>> 320 GB RAM
>> 2 x Intel Xeon 8167M CPUs (2.0 GHz, 26-core each)
>> Machine under a heavy load looking for Mersenne Primes at GIMPS
>>
>> 1) Run configure
>> 2) make -j50 
>>
>> [gap-4.10.2.p1] 
>> 
>> [gap-4.10.2.p1] Error: failed to extract 
>> /home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/upstream/gap-4.10.2.tar.bz2
>> [gap-4.10.2.p1] 
>> 
>> [gap-4.10.2.p1] Please email sage-devel (
>> http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel)
>> [gap-4.10.2.p1] explaining the problem and including the log file
>> [gap-4.10.2.p1]   /home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/logs/pkgs/gap-4.10.2.p1.log
>> [gap-4.10.2.p1] Describe your computer, operating system, etc.
>> [gap-4.10.2.p1] 
>> 
>> make[4]: *** [Makefile:2034: gap-no-deps] Error 1
>> make[3]: *** [Makefile:2034: 
>> /home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/local/var/lib/sage/installed/gap-4.10.2.p1] Interrupt
>> make[2]: *** [Makefile:1766: all-start] Interrupt
>> make[1]: *** [Makefile:33: all-start] Interrupt
>> make: *** [Makefile:13: all] Interrupt
>>
>> I attach the log which does not seem that informative.
>>
>
> your log says KeyboardInterrupt
>
> a cat on the kbd? :-)
>
> Needless to say, you ought to be trying 9.3.rc2 - or whatever the latest...
>
> Cheers,
> Dima
>
>
> I'm wondering if there was some issue because I was running make with 
>> "-j50" but there are more than 50 cores on this. 
>>
>>
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>>  
>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/06a9a5c7-6376-42a6-bedd-c144f6406350n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email_source=footer>
>> .
>>
>

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[sage-devel] Problem building sage 9.2 on CentOS 7.9

[Dr David Kirkby]

I'm fairly certain I built 9.2 on this machine before, but it failed this 
time. 

Dell 7920 
320 GB RAM
2 x Intel Xeon 8167M CPUs (2.0 GHz, 26-core each)
Machine under a heavy load looking for Mersenne Primes at GIMPS

1) Run configure
2) make -j50 

[gap-4.10.2.p1] 

[gap-4.10.2.p1] Error: failed to extract 
/home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/upstream/gap-4.10.2.tar.bz2
[gap-4.10.2.p1] 

[gap-4.10.2.p1] Please email sage-devel 
(http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel)
[gap-4.10.2.p1] explaining the problem and including the log file
[gap-4.10.2.p1]   /home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/logs/pkgs/gap-4.10.2.p1.log
[gap-4.10.2.p1] Describe your computer, operating system, etc.
[gap-4.10.2.p1] 

make[4]: *** [Makefile:2034: gap-no-deps] Error 1
make[3]: *** [Makefile:2034: 
/home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/local/var/lib/sage/installed/gap-4.10.2.p1] Interrupt
make[2]: *** [Makefile:1766: all-start] Interrupt
make[1]: *** [Makefile:33: all-start] Interrupt
make: *** [Makefile:13: all] Interrupt

I attach the log which does not seem that informative. I'm wondering if 
there was some issue because I was running make with "-j50" but there are 
more than 50 cores on this. 


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Found local metadata for gap-4.10.2.p1
Using cached file /home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/upstream/gap-4.10.2.tar.bz2
gap-4.10.2.p1

Setting up build directory for gap-4.10.2.p1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/build/bin/sage-uncompress-spkg", line 23, in 

run()
  File 
"/home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/build/bin/../sage_bootstrap/uncompress/cmdline.py", 
line 72, in run
unpack_archive(archive, dirname)
  File 
"/home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/build/bin/../sage_bootstrap/uncompress/action.py", line 
49, in unpack_archive
for member in archive.names:
  File 
"/home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/build/bin/../sage_bootstrap/uncompress/tar_file.py", 
line 70, in names
return filter_os_files(self.getnames())
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/tarfile.py", line 1815, in getnames
return [tarinfo.name for tarinfo in self.getmembers()]
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/tarfile.py", line 1807, in getmembers
self._load()# all members, we first have to
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/tarfile.py", line 2382, in _load
tarinfo = self.next()
  File "/usr/lib64/python2.7/tarfile.py", line 2317, in next
self.fileobj.seek(self.offset)
KeyboardInterrupt

Error: failed to extract /home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/upstream/gap-4.10.2.tar.bz2

Please email sage-devel (http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel)
explaining the problem and including the log file
  /home/dkirkby/sage-9.2/logs/pkgs/gap-4.10.2.p1.log
Describe your computer, operating system, etc.

Re: [sage-devel] How much do we support optional packages.

[Dr. David Kirkby]

On 26 March 2018 at 00:09, Dima Pasechnik  wrote:

> Given this, there should be no tickets made blockers merely on the basis
> that Sage broke on your favourite patchbot or  laptop...
>
> Dima
>

I think the method Wolfram Research follow with Mathematica has a *lot* of
merit. With respect to Linux, they say:

http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/system-requirements.html

"Ubuntu 12.04–17.10
RHEL 6–7
CentOS 6–7
Debian 7–9
openSUSE 12.1–13.2/Leap 42.3
Fedora 14–27

*Mathematica 11.3 has been fully tested on the Linux distributions listed
above. On new Linux distributions, additional compatibility libraries may
need to be installed. It is likely that Mathematica will run successfully
on other distributions based on the Linux kernel 2.6 or later.*

So in other words, I would suggest

1) Pick a set of distributions you want to support - not necessarily the
same as Wolfram Research.
2) Make sure there are patchbots for *all* of them, which test* all
optional packages*.
3) Make tickets blockers if they fail to work 100% on one of the fully
supported platforms.
4) If it is impossible to get some aspect of Sage working properly on a
fully supported platform, either drop that part of Sage, or remove that
distribution from the list of fully supported platforms.

Some of the ideas presented above by some people, would in my opinion at
least, have a negative aspect to the quality of the code.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] How much do we support optional packages.

[Dr. David Kirkby]

On 25 March 2018 at 18:06, William Stein  wrote:

> >> opinions.
>
> My initial intention with ooptional packages was definitely that they
> do *not* have as much support as standard.
>

The developers guide.

http://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/developer/packaging.html

says:

"

   - *optional* packages are subject to the same requirements, they should
   also work on all supported platforms. If there are optional doctests
   

   in the Sage library, those tests must pass. Note that optional packages are
   not tested as much as standard packages, so in practice they might break
   more often than standard packages.
   - for *experimental* packages, the bar is much lower: even if there are
   some problems, the package can still be accepted.

"

I would interpret that as meaning if a test reveals it does not work, then
it should not be optional, as optional packages should work on all
supported platforms. In this instance, it seems there are some problems, so
it should either be fixed or changed to experimental.


Dave



Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] How much do we support optional packages.

[Dr. David Kirkby]

On 25 March 2018 at 10:03, Vincent Delecroix <20100.delecr...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Apparently Volker does not agree with what was a kind of agreement here
>
> https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/24903#comment:3
> https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/23533#comment:13
>
> It would be nice that we take a concrete decision about how much we
> support optional packages (and write it in the developer manual). So far
> Maarten, Jeroen and I are in favor of as much support with optional as
> standard. And Volker seems to be against. It would be nice to have more
> opinions.
>
> Vincent
>
> As someone who did a lot of development on Sage years ago, my
understanding was that optional packages were* meant to work*. In much the
same way as you buy a car, and can pay extra for optional features, such as
leather seats, heated seats, alloy wheels, metallic paint etc.

If something does not work reliably on all supported platforms, then it
should be considered 'experimental' in my opinion. So in my opinion at
least, if something does not work properly on all platforms, there are
currently only two sensible options.

1) Fix the problem.

2) Downgrade the package to experimental.

Otherwise you have no distinction between optional and experimental.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Online Sage Days

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 9 September 2017 at 10:04, David Roe  wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> I'd like to organize some online Sage Days, where people gather on
> zulip.sagemath.org and work on Sage together.  The two things to be
> decided are
>

Sounds good.

1. What topics should we focus on?
> 2. What days/times work for the most people?
> Some of these may transition into in-person working groups (the IMA has
> funding for small groups to meet there over this coming year to work on
> projects)
>

I look at a large number of online webinars from companies like Rohde and
Schwarz, Keysight etc. They always seem to arrange them afternoon in the
USA, so they are at a reasonable time in the day for Europe too.



>
> I'll send out a survey for the scheduling part, but I wanted to solicit
> suggestions for topics first.  Some ideas:
>
>
> If you'd like me to include other topics in the survey, chime in!
> David
>

* Some for absolute beginners - it makes sense to make that the first of
these.
* Some for engineers, or others who don't have maths degrees.
* Some for developers. I used to do a lot of work for Sage - in fact I was
at one point in the top 10% of some list William produced. But now the
switch from mercurial to git, and I'm out of it. There are other reasons in
my case - I worked mainly on the port to Solaris, completed that, but
Solaris is no longer tested or working.
* A DECENT interface to Mathematica, with a proper API, not using pexpect,
which seems to be rather a poor alternative, which is always breaking.
* NOT OpenSSL.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Implementation plan : inclusion of OpenSSL

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 October 2017 at 16:38, Emmanuel Charpentier <
emanuel.charpent...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Proposal for implementation of OpenSSL inclusion in Sage.
>
> The inclusion of OpenSSL in Sage has been decided
> 
> after a long and fruitful discussion
> .
> Now remains to implement it…
>

That's a very dubious statement, based on a flawed poll.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: VOTE: inclusion of OpenSSL in Sage

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 24 October 2017 at 15:51, Emmanuel Charpentier <
emanuel.charpent...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Final tally
>
>  Yes, we should fully support OpenSSL now, and clarify the licensing issue
> : 9 unambiguous votes :
>
> 


>
>  No, we should wait until OpenSSL finishes fixing their license situation
> formally : 4 unambiguous votes.
>
> 

Other participants to discussion, which did not formally vote, or "threw
> their vote away" ((C) Michael Orlitzky) in favor of another option : 10
> people
>


> David Joyner
> Michael Orlitzky
> Nicolas M Thiéry
> Dr David Kirby
> Thierry (sage-googlesucks@xxx)
> kcrisman
> John H Palmieri
>
> The ayes still have it.
>

I think it is unjust to conclude the ayes have it, when the question was
ill posed, and the largest group did not vote for either of the "options"
you have.

There's the very real possibility that OpenSSL may never change their
license in a way that's compatible with the GPL, but your second option
assumes they will formally fix their license - a license that some OpenSSL
developers at least see does not need fixing.



Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: VOTE: inclusion of OpenSSL in Sage

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 18 October 2017 at 14:13, Erik Bray <erik.m.b...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 11:52 AM, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave
> Note: We're not talking about adding *any* OpenSSL code to SageMath.
> Sage would never be distributed with code from OpenSSL.  We're only
> talking about providing a means to download and install it from
> source, and about shipping binaries that includes it.
>
>
How exactly do you intend shipping binaries that include the OpenSSL
library, while not including *any*  OpenSSL code?

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: VOTE: inclusion of OpenSSL in Sage

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 18 Oct 2017 00:39, "William Stein" <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 4:35 PM Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) <
drkir...@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote:

>> There are a lot of number theorists using Sagemath. Could one or more
consider implementing the functionality of OpenSSL in a re-write? Maybe a
Google Summer of Code project?
>
>
> Absolutely not.   That's not how security software works (and would be
insulting to the OpenSSL developers).   You are **epically** understimating
what OpenSSL is and does.

I don't see how it is insulting to someone to say we like what you have
done,  but need a different licence model, so will need to implement the
algoithms ourselves.

How is that materially different to Octave implementing MATLAB
functionality but under an open source licence?

I feel an unacceptable licence and/or a broken implementation on one
platform (OSX) are both reasons for a rewrite.  It seems that there are
both problems now.

What in my opinion is insulting is to

1) Add the OpenSSL code to Sagemath, knowing full well it is against the
licence. How anybody can justify such action is beyond me.

2) Email people and say that you assume that they agree unless they say
they object.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: VOTE: inclusion of OpenSSL in Sage

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 17 Oct 2017 23:56, "Dima Pasechnik"  wrote:
>
> On Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at 10:52:47 PM UTC+1, Nicolas M. Thiéry
wrote:
>>
>>

> The problem is that we cannot, as rightfully pointed here by Michael,
provide a tarball with OpenSSL source, as this
> would be an outright copyright violation. Thus we ought to rely on the
system libraries.

There are a lot of number theorists using Sagemath. Could one or more
consider implementing the functionality of OpenSSL in a re-write? Maybe a
Google Summer of Code project?

If a subset of the SSL developers are happy to have the code they wrote
GPL, then there would be no need to rewrite those bits, if those
individuals would relicense the bits they personally wrote.  That would
mean a rewrite of the bit written by by developers who will not relicense
what they wrote.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] EU Copyright reform threatens open source

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 2 October 2017 at 09:38, Nicolas M. Thiery 
wrote:

> Dear Sage developers,
>
> Summary: the EU is looking to pass a new copyright act that would
> require sharing platforms to filter for copyright infringements. For
> software sharing platforms like GitHub, GitLab, ... this is very
> problematic and might endanger open source development as we know it.
>
> You may want to read https://savecodeshare.eu/ and sign the open letter
> by the Free Software Foundation Europe to the EU there.
>

I sent an email accidentatly before completing it.

For those living in the UK, or having UK citizenship, they might want to
look into this

https://www.gov.uk/petition-government

EU law requires agreement of all member states. If this matter received
100,000 signatories, it would have to be debated in the UK Parliament. I
can't see the UK agreeing to any new laws at the minute, with Brexit on the
agenda.

I suspect such a bill, even if passed by the EU, would have negligible
effect on open source. Many developers are outside the EU, and a lot of
hosting is outside the EU. If it was delayed long enough for the UK to be
outside the EU, then it would not matter here either.

At  sci-hub

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub

you can download millions of academic papers behind paywalls. There are
lots of lawsuits against sci-hub

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub#Lawsuits

but they have little chance of getting any money, as the site is hosted in
Russia.

In the UK the government is trying to get companies like Facebook to take
down certain forms of material, with little success. I don't think this
proposed EU legistation would be high on their priority list.

If anyone can convince me this is a real threat to open-source software,
then I'll sign it, but otherwise I don't think I'll bother.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] EU Copyright reform threatens open source

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 2 October 2017 at 09:38, Nicolas M. Thiery 
wrote:

> Dear Sage developers,
>
> Summary: the EU is looking to pass a new copyright act that would
> require sharing platforms to filter for copyright infringements. For
> software sharing platforms like GitHub, GitLab, ... this is very
> problematic and might endanger open source development as we know it.
>


For those living in the UK, or holding UK citizenship, it might be worth
creating a petition here



>
> You may want to read https://savecodeshare.eu/ and sign the open letter
> by the Free Software Foundation Europe to the EU there.
>
> The letter can be signed as an individual or as an organization.
> OpenDreamKit is planning to sign as an organization. Maybe the
> SageMath fundation could sign as an organization as well on behalf of
> the community? (unless of course some SageMath dev would object now).
>
> Cheers,
> Nicolas
> --
> Nicolas M. Thiéry "Isil" 
> http://Nicolas.Thiery.name/
>
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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Including 64-bit-only code in Sage

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 20 September 2017 at 07:58, Volker Braun  wrote:

> IMHO its a code smell if your code doesn't work on 32-bit platforms.
> Remember, almost all 32 bit platforms are perfectly capable of working with
> 64-bit integers (just not as fast). But your code must be *correct* (e.g.
> use uint64_t), and not just coincidentally work on some compiler/platform
> but not guaranteed so by any C language standard.
>

If the opinion of the author of the program is  "life is too short to worry
about overflowing a 32-bit integer", which is what was stated, it is
unlikely that the author used uint64_t.

The C standard has changed over the years, so what was perfectly normal at
one point, may no longer be.

I recall hitting a problem on a Cray, where

sizeof(short) == sizeof(int) == sizeof(long) == 8.

These 32-bit/64-bit problems *should* be relatively easy to fix if is C.
I've hit a number of these over the years using 64-bit Solaris, where the
default it to build 32-bit, but both can be built. I recall in the past
some packages in Sage building partially 32-bit bit, and partially 64-bit,
then when the linker tried to link the separate object files, so things did
not work. These problems were all overcome.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Does anyone use SAGE64?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 4 September 2017 at 18:34, Erik Bray  wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 6:08 PM, Jean-Pierre Flori 
> wrote:
> +1 I think if this functionality is needed for Solaris (or any other
> platform) it should be moved into configure.ac, and the explicit
> environment variables done away with.
>
>
But the variable does more than add -m64.
I fail to see what harm it is doing leaving it there, but removing it would
make a 64-bit Solaris port  more work. A lot of time was put into adding
the code in various files to accept that variable.

What is it going to gain by removing it? Make the download a few hundred
bytes smaller?

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Does anyone use SAGE64?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 2 September 2017 at 21:59, John H Palmieri 
wrote:

>
> I don't know if Sage works on Solaris right now, but if it does, does it
> build gcc (as it does on OS X), or does it use a preexisting compiler?
>

I would be surprised if Sage did build on Solaris now, as I would be
extreamly surprised if something has broken it since I last built it. But
Sage certainly did build gcc.

>
>
> I believe SAGE64 does more than just add the -m64 flag in a couple of
>> places, so I would propose it is not removed, as it would effectively kit
>> any attempt to build a 64-bit Solaris version of Sage.
>>
>
>
> I think it mainly adds -m64, but this is not hard to investigate.
>
>   John
>

It *mainly* does. But I'm 99% sure it does other things too.

BTW, I was until recently giving serious consideration to doing a maths
degree at the Open University.

http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/qualifications/q31

The only problem is since I got my Ph.D. more than 16 years ago, none of my
academic qualifications count for anything, and so I need to start with
"Discovering Mathematics", which the OU describe as:

"This key introductory OU level 1 module provides a gentle start to the
study of mathematics. It will help you to integrate mathematical ideas into
your everyday thinking and build your confidence in using and learning
mathematics. You’ll cover statistical, graphical, algebraic, trigonometric
and numerical concepts and techniques, and be introduced to mathematical
modelling. Formal calculus is not included and you are not expected to have
any previous knowledge of algebra. The skills introduced will be ideal if
you plan to study more mathematics modules, such as *Essential mathematics
1* (MST124). It is also suitable for users of mathematics in other areas,
such as computing, science, technology, social science, humanities,
business and education."

I object to paying to learn such noddy stuff. I've been in touch with the
OU, but it seems a BSc, MSc and PhD all in science/engineering are worth
nothing, so can not attract any credits, so save me any money. The OU has
zero flexibility.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Does anyone use SAGE64?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 2 September 2017 at 01:41, John H Palmieri 
wrote:

>
>
> Hi Dave,
>
> Can you clarify? You say that the are necessary on Solaris, but is that
> recent information? It is possible that newer versions of Sage and/or
> Solaris might make SAGE64 unnecessary.
>
> Regards,
>   John
>

Hi John,

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18659_01/html/821-1384/gexcx.html

says that the -m64 flag would be needed to create a 64-bit executable. It
also says -m32 it required to create 32-bit executable. It is not too clear
on the default, but I rather suspect it is still 32-bit. The latest version
is Solaris 11.3. I'm running Solaris 11, but not 11.3.

I believe SAGE64 does more than just add the -m64 flag in a couple of
places, so I would propose it is not removed, as it would effectively kit
any attempt to build a 64-bit Solaris version of Sage.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Does anyone use SAGE64?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 2 Sep 2017 01:41, "John H Palmieri"  wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
> Can you clarify? You say that the are necessary on Solaris, but is that
recent information? It is possible that newer versions of Sage and/or
Solaris might make SAGE64 unnecessary.
>
> Regards,
>   John

Hi John,

I will look into this.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Does anyone use SAGE64?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 1 Sep 2017 23:54, "François Bissey" <frp.bis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > On 2/09/2017, at 10:47, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) <
drkir...@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 1 Sep 2017 23:21, "John H Palmieri" <jhpalmier...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Does anyone use the environment variables SAGE64 of CFLAG64? At
https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/23733, it is suggested that they be
deprecated and then removed. Any comments?
> > >
> > > --
> > > John
> >
> > They are necessary if one attempts to build a 64 bit version on
Solaris. I think they might be used on some versions of OSX too, but I am
not sure about that.
> >
> > I would say that they should not be removed.
> >
> > I never managed to get a reliable 64 bit version on Solaris, but at one
point the 32-bit version passed all the doctests.
> >
>
> Not needed on OS X. Do you still do stuff on solaris?
> Do you need it for solaris 64 because the default is to compile 32bits?
>
> François

I still run Solaris as my main OS. I have not done any Sage development for
some time,  but do intend restarting.

Yes, the default is to build 32 bits, even on a 64-bit OS.

I could have swore that it was used on at least same versions of OSX. I
would need to look at the Sage source code, but am in bed using my mobile
phone,  that will have to wait until the morning.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Does anyone use SAGE64?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 1 Sep 2017 23:21, "John H Palmieri"  wrote:
>
> Does anyone use the environment variables SAGE64 of CFLAG64? At
https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/23733, it is suggested that they be
deprecated and then removed. Any comments?
>
> --
> John

They are necessary if one attempts to build a 64 bit version on Solaris. I
think they might be used on some versions of OSX too, but I am not sure
about that.

I would say that they should not be removed.

I never managed to get a reliable 64 bit version on Solaris, but at one
point the 32-bit version passed all the doctests.

Dave.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Calculation Error

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 26 August 2017 at 01:40, David Roe  wrote:

> This is not a bug.  If you look at the documentation for Integer.__pow__,
> you'll see "For consistency with Python and MPFR, 0^0 is defined to be 1 in
> Sage."
> David
>

I'm not a mathematician, but believe 0^0 is undefined. Sagemath being
consistent with something that is wrong seems to be a bug to me. Just
because X does it wrong, I don't see why there's a good reason to follow X.

Submitting that as a bug to Python and MPFR developers seems sensible.
Following them does not.

FWIW, in Mathematica.

drkirkby@hawk:~/PDFs$ math
Mathematica 7.0 for Sun Solaris x86 (64-bit)
Copyright 1988-2009 Wolfram Research, Inc.

In[1]:= 0^0

0
Power::indet: Indeterminate expression 0  encountered.

Out[1]= Indeterminate

In[2]:=

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Re: [sage-packaging] Re: [sage-devel] Upgrade PARI to git master

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 27 July 2017 at 10:01, Jeroen Demeyer <jdeme...@cage.ugent.be> wrote:

> On 2017-07-26 00:46, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) wrote:
>
>> Would it be worth creating a fork of PARI
>>
>
> What *exactly* do you mean with that?
>
> I feel like "fork" is just a word and you can already consider the
> PARI-in-Sage to be a fork of PARI.
>

Just periodically release a latest github version of Pair under another
name, with a "stable" version number - having test it well of course.


>
> you would avoid the problems of a distribution not accepting a git-master
>> copy.
>>
>
> I'm not convinced that distributions would accept a fork either (again,
> this may depend on the precise meaning of "fork"). For example, distros
> generally use GMP instead of the fork MPIR that Sage uses.


In that case, perhaps my "solution" would not work, although perhaps
distributions would consider that development of PARI is ongoing, but new
releases are 2 years apart. That is pretty unusual.

An ideal solution would be to try to encourage the PARI developers to
release a new version more regularly, but you can't force anyone to do
that.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Upgrade PARI to git master

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 Jul 2017 21:16, "Jeroen Demeyer"  wrote:
>
> Hello sage-devel and sage-packaging,
>
> I propose to upgrade the PARI package to the git master version instead
of the current released version.
>
>
> A second motivation is that stable releases of PARI are very slow. The
most recent stable PARI releases (excluding bugfix releases) were in
november 2016, march 2014 and june 2011. Upgrading now to git master gives
the advantage that we can profit from improvements in PARI. It will also
make the transition to the next stable release easier: the large time
between stable releases implies many changes. Since many components of Sage
use PARI, there are a substantial number of changes needed in Sage with
every PARI upgrade. By doing this upgrade in steps, this becomes more
manageable.
>
> I do know that this request is controversial because distributions are
not likely to accept a "git master" version. However, I feel that I cannot
make progress with the PARI Jupyter kernel unless this is resolved. So I
would like distributions to accept that Sage is moving again to a git
master version of PARI.

> I didn't make a Trac ticket for this yet precisely because I know it is
controversial.
>
> Comments? Suggestions?
> Jeroen.

Would it be worth creating a fork of PARI, where the fork just puts out a
stable release when needed? Call is Sage-PARI or something,  then you would
avoid the problems of a distribution not accepting a git-master copy.

Dave

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[sage-devel] Re: MPIR-3.0.0 released

[Dr David Kirkby]

On Wednesday, 1 March 2017 12:06:52 UTC, Bill Hart wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> We have just released MPIR-3.0.0.
>
> http://mpir.org/
>

I don't know if this will reach sage-devel, since I have not posted there 
for more than a year, and some spammer used another account I used to use. 

For what it is worth, mpir 3.0 built a 64-bit version on a very old version 
of Solaris x86. All tests passed. 

drkirkby@hawk:~/mpir-1.3.0$ cat /etc/release
   OpenSolaris Development snv_134 X86
   Copyright 2010 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
 Assembled 01 March 2010

Dave 

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[sage-devel] Re: Suggestion for main configure script to give package names for Latex.

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 6 September 2016 at 13:45, Dima Pasechnik <dimp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi David,
>


>
> On Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 9:08:25 AM UTC, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby
> Microwave Ltd) wrote:
>>
>> I'm trying to migrate away from Solaris to Linux, given the takeover by
>> Oracle. I decided to install the latest Debian (8.5 == Jessie) , and Sage.
>> I have not succeeded yet, but some of the issues seem to be ones where the
>> installation could be made easier for popular linux distributions.
>>
>>
> with your Unix knowledge you'd feel Debian is a jail of sorts; I'd
> recommend Arch.
>

Hi Dima

Why do you say Debian is a jail of sorts?

I'm looking for a distribution, that perhaps does not exist

* Reasonably well set up for things like propriety video drivers (my Nvidia
FX3800 seems to present a few hassles for any distribution) . I tried Mint,
and quite looked the front end and the fact it installed drivers for my
hardware. I like open-source, but when closed-source hardware drivers are
better, I will use them.

* Be reasonably flexible I'm not sure how this will work on Mint, but I
read something on a Scientific Linux mailing list which made me think Mint
was a poor choice. The comment there was that the Mint forums were more
"enthusiastic hobbyists, and not professionals". As you know, I'm pretty
decent at Unix, having long since used Solaris, and having also used AIX,
HP-UX etc. I think its fair to say I would probably need help with more
complex things, that maybe "enthusiastic hobbyists" would not be
sufficiently competent.

* I don't want to keep re-installing operating systems regularly. I have
not updated my Solaris distribution for about 7 years. I run a business and
want a computer that works - not one I am going to have to spend all my
time maintaining.

In fact, my only real reason for ditching Solaris now is that one of my
SPARC machines is being unreliable with perplexing hardware errors. Since I
use that for data collection from test equipment, I want to move the GPIB
card that collects the data to a more modern machine, which should be more
reliable.

I have Centros on a couple of IBM servers which I have not used for the
last year or so. My reason for going to Centros was that I had some
commercial software that was supported only on Redhat. I did work on
Centros, whereas any other distribution was likely to lead to issues.

One thing I do want to do is video editing. Blender seems to be the best
software for that.



Dave

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[sage-devel] Re: Suggestion for main configure script to give package names for Latex.

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On Tuesday, 6 September 2016, Dima Pasechnik <dimp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> On Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 9:08:25 AM UTC, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby
> Microwave Ltd) wrote:
>>
>> I'm trying to migrate away from Solaris to Linux, given the takeover by
>> Oracle. I decided to install the latest Debian (8.5 == Jessie) , and Sage.
>> I have not succeeded yet, but some of the issues seem to be ones where the
>> installation could be made easier for popular linux distributions.
>>
>>
> with your Unix knowledge you'd feel Debian is a jail of sorts; I'd
> recommend Arch.
>

You are possibly right about Debian. What I like about Solaris was it was
very stable (My dated hardware is not so stable, with puzzling hardware
errors.)

I get the impression that Arch is very regularly updated, which doesn't fit
with my philosophy. (I regularly used to argue for Sage releases with only
bug fixes, but my views on that were a tiny minority.)

But I must admit I not exactly over impressed with Debian as a desktop
operating system. I might try another distribution or two.

 
>
>> First configure would not run, with some  crpytic message about some
>> library not being sane. A Google found i needed to install g++.
>>
>> Next I got a warnings that Latex is not present. I know this is not so
>> important, but I thought I'd install a Debian package for latex.
>> Unfortunately a search on Latex brings up many tens (perhaps >100)
>> packages. It is far from clear what package(s) is necessary.
>>
>
> texlive-full with install most everything in one go. It's an overkill, but
> unless you're really short on disk space it's OK.
>
>
>
>>
>> It might be worth the configure script reporting how to install Latex and
>> perhaps other missing bits. Something like
>>
>> ===
>> You can get the Latex source from http://www.where-latex-is.org
>>
>>
>> On Debian execute: # apt-get install  $whatever_package
>> On Suse # $whatever_command_installs_latex
>> On Mint  # $whatever_command_installs_latex
>> 
>>
>> do this for the 5-10 most popular distributions, based on distrowatch
>> https://distrowatch.com/ or similar.
>>
>> I worked out how to use Mercurial when Sage used that, now I note it has
>> gone to git, I really don't have enough time to learn something else.
>>
>
> the whole world has basically gone to git nowadays, not only Sage.
> Besides it's not so different from hg.
>
> Cheers,
> Dima
>
>
>
>>
>> PS, I found this page
>> https://wiki.sagemath.org/devel/DebianSage
>> last updated in 2009. Unless someone is willing to update it, I suggest
>> it might be better removed.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>

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Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT,
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[sage-devel] Suggestion for main configure script to give package names for Latex.

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

I'm trying to migrate away from Solaris to Linux, given the takeover by
Oracle. I decided to install the latest Debian (8.5 == Jessie) , and Sage.
I have not succeeded yet, but some of the issues seem to be ones where the
installation could be made easier for popular linux distributions.

First configure would not run, with some  crpytic message about some
library not being sane. A Google found i needed to install g++.

Next I got a warnings that Latex is not present. I know this is not so
important, but I thought I'd install a Debian package for latex.
Unfortunately a search on Latex brings up many tens (perhaps >100)
packages. It is far from clear what package(s) is necessary.

It might be worth the configure script reporting how to install Latex and
perhaps other missing bits. Something like

===
You can get the Latex source from http://www.where-latex-is.org


On Debian execute: # apt-get install  $whatever_package
On Suse # $whatever_command_installs_latex
On Mint  # $whatever_command_installs_latex


do this for the 5-10 most popular distributions, based on distrowatch
https://distrowatch.com/ or similar.

I worked out how to use Mercurial when Sage used that, now I note it has
gone to git, I really don't have enough time to learn something else.

PS, I found this page
https://wiki.sagemath.org/devel/DebianSage
last updated in 2009. Unless someone is willing to update it, I suggest it
might be better removed.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Sources of funding - perhaps computer manufacturers?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 3 October 2015 at 16:38, rjf  wrote:

>
>
>
> Most software developers seeking funding need a "killer app".  I don't
> know that Mathematica has one -- but maybe it is STEM education,
> since that's the major way of selling lots of systems.  There were
> forays into financial software, engineering, visualization, web hosting,
> information storage "curated"  (Alpha).  All of these were however
> premised on the sale of the system to users, or selling of online
> services  (or maybe ads?)
>
>

I've often wondered where Wolfram Research make their money. Clearly
Mathematica is their main product, but based on personal experience, and
job adverts, I rarely see any employer wanting skills in Mathematica.
Contrast that with MATLAB, and there are a huge number of jobs calling for
MATLAB skills. It makes me think that the only significant purchasers of
Mathematica are academic institutions.

So I don't know what their "killer app" is, as I have never seen any
evidence to suggest they have one. I can only think it is selling to
academia - as to what areas, I have no idea.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Sources of funding - perhaps computer manufacturers?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 30 Sep 2015 21:51, "Bill Hart"  wrote:
>
> I don't see why would you make people use Sage for that, just so you can
get the Sage usage figures up, instead of writing that as a simple Python
package.
>

But if Sage could do a lot of the things related to this, which RF
engineers can do with the MATLAB toolbox, then Sage would start  becoming a
viable alternative to MATLAB for engineers working in this field. At the
moment, Sage is nowhere near a viable alternative, and I don't think it
will in my lifetime (I'm 51), if ever.

If you look at Mathematica for example, it has evolved a lot, to add
functionality in areas far removed from version 1.0. Apparently the biggest
user base is actually the financial sector - or at least was a few years
ago. (This possibly hints at another source of funding for Sage - the
financial sector. )

I think to be honest, there's a good argument for just re-writing the Sage
"Mission Statement", since realistically the mission has zero chance of
ever being reached, or even approached fairly closely. I don't think you
could come up with any very objective metrics, but I believe the gap
between Mathematica and Sage is widening, as it the gap between Sage and
MATLAB.

If I am honest, I think the *only* way Sage would ever be a viable
alternative to Mathematica for a lot of users would be if Wolfram Research
stopped development of the program,. either because they went bust, or
decided it was not commercially viable, so stopped development of it
voluntarily. The same argument would apply to MATLAB with Mathworks.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Sources of funding - perhaps computer manufacturers?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 30 Sep 2015 21:51, "Bill Hart"  wrote:
>
> I don't see why would you make people use Sage for that, just so you can
get the Sage usage figures up, instead of writing that as a simple Python
package.
>

But if Sage could do a lot of the things related to this, which RF
engineers can do with the MATLAB toolbox, then Sage would start  becoming a
viable alternative to MATLAB for engineers working in this field. At the
moment, Sage is nowhere near a viable alternative, and I don't think it
will in my lifetime (I'm 51), if ever.

If you look at Mathematica for example, it has evolved a lot, to add
functionality in areas far removed from version 1.0. Apparently the biggest
user base is actually the financial sector - or at least was a few years
ago. (This possibly hints at another source of funding for Sage - the
financial sector. )

I think to be honest, there's a good argument for just re-writing the Sage
"Mission Statement", since realistically the mission has zero chance of
ever being reached, or even approached fairly closely. I don't think you
could come up with any very objective metrics, but I believe the gap
between Mathematica and Sage is widening, as it the gap between Sage and
MATLAB.

If I am honest, I think the *only* way Sage would ever be a viable
alternative to Mathematica for a very large number of users would be if
Wolfram Research stopped development of the program, either because they
went bust, or decided it was not commercially viable, so stopped
development of it voluntarily. The same argument would apply to MATLAB with
Mathworks.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Sources of funding - perhaps computer manufacturers?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 30 September 2015 at 18:05, Jori Mäntysalo  wrote:

>
> It is usually good to build on strong points. So, what are best areas in
> Sage? Where it now is The Software(tm) to use?
>
> And how could we expand those to some near area?
>

I'm not convinced that is true - in fact, I would go as far as to say it is
false.

Will adding more number theory stuff into Sage increase the user base? I
suspect the fact that Sage is already strong in that area, means it will
not.

Would improving the symbolic maths help? I suspect it would, as rightly or
wrongly, (and I don't claim to be a good judge of that), I think
Mathematica is seen by many as the best overall package for symbolic maths.

I used vector network analyzers (VNAs) a lot in my job. They measure the
impedance of devices, and normally save data as S-parameters (Scattering
parameters), which basically have frequency in one column, and the
magnitude and angle of a reflected or transmitted wave in other columns.
The file format is pretty simple - here's a bit of an example file, which I
collected from one of my instruments using the GPIB bus.

! This is a touchstone format file.
! It should be saved with .s2p extension
! HEWLETT PACKARD,8720D,0,7.74
! Date = 31 Aug 2013
! Time = 18:37:05
! Start frequency = 0.05000 GHz
! Stop frequency  = 6.0 GHz
! IF bandwidth = 100 Hz
! Averaging = OFF
! Averaging factor = 2
! Port extensions = OFF
! Port extension 1 = 0.00 ps
! Port extension 2 = 0.00 ps
! Points  = 1601
! Calibration kit = User-defined
! Calibration = Full 2-port
! freq magS11 angS11 magS21 angS21 magS12 angS12 magS22 angS22
! Magnitudes are in log form
! Angles are in degrees
# MHz S DB R 50
50 -61.8945 -16.5234 -29.7334 -2.63403 -29.7471 -2.63953 -60.0195 39.3203
53.7188 -63.7793 -20.7686 -29.7539 -2.89636 -29.7461 -3.00757 -59.5742
37.5234
57.4375 -62.4453 -4.62256 -29.7158 -3.19153 -29.7617 -3.09814 -59.7539
34.6055
61.1562 -60.2402 -1.19067 -29.7373 -3.16272 -29.7656 -3.47717 -60.5273
37.7832

Now since it contains data as a function of frequency, one can get it as a
function of time by doing an Inverse Fourier Transform (IFT). Now Keysight,
who produce a lot of VNAs charge you around $3000 to do enable the software
in their instruments to do the IFT and so display data as a function of
time. Now lots of people don't have that option, so it is not uncommon to
see people wanting to do the IFT outside their instrument.

I normally direct them to bit of free software, that is designed for a low
cost (<$1000) vector network analyzer, but the author, who is an academic,
has written it in such a way that it can read the above file format and
display the time-domain data.

I'm sure it would not be rocket science in Sage to do this, but you would
have to write code to parse the file properly, do the IFT with windowing.
It is much easier to just use a bit of software that has the functionality
built in.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Sources of funding - perhaps computer manufacturers?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 30 September 2015 at 20:44, Bill Hart 
wrote:


>
> It's extremely unlikely we'll get someone wanting to move to the EU from
> overseas for a position only guaranteed for one year. We are at least being
> realistic about it.
>
> Bill.
>

Certainly many engineers would do it.  A contract post for a year would
suite many, but they would expect to earn a reasonable amount of money out
of that.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Sources of funding - perhaps computer manufacturers?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 28 Sep 2015 18:25, "Francesco Biscani" <bluesca...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have always felt a tad confused and mislead by this statement.
>
> As someone who has interacted over the years with physicists and
engineers using daily Mathematica, Maple and Matlab, I see very little
overlap between their typical use of these tools and the typical usages of
SAGE, at least from the point of view of a lurker on this list. It seems
like SAGE caters to (and is run mostly by) researchers in pure mathematics,
and that is little interest on other use cases. Pragmatically, it seems to
me that a sizeable chunk of people "doing mathematics on a computer" is
today better served in the Python space by the Numpy/SciPy/SymPy/Matplotlib
stack as an alternative to the Ma's rather than SAGE.
>
> This is of course completely fine! I am not questioning anyone's motives,
inclinations or desires. But IMO continuing to push the idea that SAGE aims
to be a viable alternative to the Ma's tout-court risks of being a source
of confusion.
>
> Cheers,
>
>   Francesco.

I tend to agree,  even though I am aware Sage included
Numpy/SciPy/SymPy/Matplotlib.

Octave, which is a MATLAB clone,  is supported as an optional package,
though personally if I wanted to use Octave,  I would run Octave.

One thing that Sage could do with,  which might attract some engineers, is
GPIB and RS-232 support to control instruments, which is a small part of
the MATLAB instrument control toolbox.

http://uk.mathworks.com/products/instrument/

I think the ability to control instruments from MATLAB, is essential. GPIB
(IEEE-488)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE-488

is one way to communicate with them, and is the only method used on older
instruments. Some low-cost modern instruments use USB and/or LAN, but the
more expensive modern instruments will use USB, LAN and GPIB. Some
instruments can be controlled via RS-232.

I believe a Python plugin exists for GPIB.  A lot of instruments have GPIB
connectivity.  If I look in my lab, I have some instruments with GPIB and
some without. The list with GPIB support is much longer than without.

*WITH* GPIB

* HP 8753ES 300 kHz to 3 GHz vector network analyser
* HP 8720D 50 MHz to 20 GHz vector network analyser
* 22 GHz Spectrum analyzer based on HP 7 modular  measurement system
* 4 x Agilent power supplies, of various voltages & currents
* HP 8970A noise figure meter.
* 20 GHz HP 83623A sweep generator
* 4.2 GHz HP 8665A signal generator
* 1 GHz Marconi 2022D signal generator
* 20 GHz IFR 2187 programmable stepped attenuator.
* Stanford Research DS345 30 MHz function generator
* HP 438A Dual channel power meter.
* EG 7260 lock in amplifier.
* HP 4284A precision frequency reference
* 18 GHz HP frequency counter
* HP 3457A 6.5 digit bench multimeter

WITHOUT GPIB
* HP 58503A GPS locked frequency reference - that has RS232 control.
* 2 x handheld Tektronix 4.5 digit multimeters.
* Peak ESR70 meter.
* HP 100 MHz HP oscilloscope. - although GPIB is an option on this.

I guess adding the GPIB module into Sage, would allow instruments to be
controlled, would be one small step towards making it attractive to
engineers, especially if there was an online demo of real time streaming of
data from some test equipment. But realistically, Francesco is right,
there's not a lot to attract engineers using MATLAB or Mathematica.

Personally my experience is most engineers use MATLAB or Labview - I see
very few using Mathematica or Maple.

It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Until you get more engineers
using Sage, you wont get the engineering tools engineers need. Until those
tools exists, you wont get engineers using Sage.

So Francesco is right. With Sage not having anywhere near the functionality
of MATLAB for engineers, it is not going to attract them, so it is not a
viable alternative. Just look at the toolboxes available for MATLAB

http://uk.mathworks.com/products/

any you will soon see Sage is far from a viable alternative to MATLAB. Sage
may be more of a viable alternative to Mathematica and Maple.

Dr David Kirkby
(A chartered  engineer but *not* a mathematician)

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Re: [sage-devel] Sources of funding - perhaps computer manufacturers?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 30 September 2015 at 10:07, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) <
drkir...@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote:

>
>
> O * HP 4284A precision frequency reference
>
Oops, the 4284A is a precision LCR meter, not a frequency reference. That
instrument is obsolete

http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-100874:epsg:pro-pn-4284A/precision-lcr-meter-20-hz-to-1-mhz

but with a basic uncertainly of 0.05%, has much lower uncertainty than many
more modern instruments. If you exclude cheap Chinese instruments, where
rand() is used to generate the specifications, then there's nothing to
touch the 4284A, unless one spends serious amounts of money.

A quick Google will find drivers existing to control the 4284A with MATLAB

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/hp-4284A-vi-s-for-old-Matlab-version-6-1/td-p/871386

I've not bothered checking, but I doubt there would be with Mathematica.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] What can we assume about our C compiler

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 21 Sep 2015 13:58, "Thierry Dumont"  wrote:
>
> Le 21/09/2015 14:16, Jeroen Demeyer a écrit :
> > On 2015-09-21 13:47, Nathann Cohen wrote:
> >> Hello everybody,
> >>
> >> What can we assume on our C compiler? Is it always gcc?
> >

> Did anybody tried ICC ? I can do it, for fun...

For what it is worth,  I have tried compilers from Sun on Solaris, HP on
HP-UX and IBM on AIX.

I never managed to compile Sage on AIX or HP-UX, although I got much
further with GCC  than with the IBM or HP compilers. Essentially the HP and
IBM reject all the GNUisms.

Although Sage used to build fine on Solaris and pass all doctests, this was
only possible with GCC. Now Sun (now Oracle) did produce a compiler with a
GCC  parser, so it accepted the GNUisms, but used the native back end to
produce faster code than GCC. I never tried building Sage with that.

I think it is fairly safe to say that you can't build Sage with a compiler
that is not in some way based on gcc.

Dave.

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[sage-devel] Mobile Friendly web sites - SageMath is not one of them.

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

I recently updated a web site for my local amateur  radio club, to make it
"mobile friendly", as defined by Google. One advantage of that is it gets
higher search ranking by Google when a user is using a mobile device than a
site would otherwise get, See

https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dhars.org.uk%2F

Now I tried the same on the SageMath web site, and it fails.

https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sagemath.org

This means it is less likely to be reported by Google when someone is
searching with a mobile device. So too is Mathematica, which also fails

https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wolfram.com%2Fmathematica%2F

but the SageMath cloud passes

https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcloud.sagemath.com%2F

I was looking at a report from PayPal today, which shows that 85% of the
things I sell are exported outside the UK, but 0% are purchased from my
site with a mobile computer. I think it's about time I addressed that
issue, and made my site "mobile friendly".



Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT,
UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)

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[sage-devel] Sources of funding - perhaps computer manufacturers?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

A ticket I opened years ago about a problem on AIX, got closed recently. It
got me thinking about something  whose usefulness could well extend beyond
one issue building Sage on AIX.

I gather William is having problems getting funding from NSF and similar
places. I wonder if it's time to look at this a different way. Based on
things in the past

1) Sun sponsored a port to Solaris, and paid the salary of someone.
Unfortunately the computer they donated (t2) was not suited to the task,
but that is irrelevant now. We did eventually get Sage ported to Solaris.

2) Someone from IBM contacted William some time ago an IBM funded port to
AIX. I got involved, as I did have an AIX box, but nothing ever came of it.

I am realistic, and don't expect many Sage developers to care less about
AIX, although I think there is at least one other that will do. IBM do have
some nice hardware.

But how about contacting manufacturers of other devices, to sponsor either
a full Sage port, or a subset of Sage.

Some that come to mind are

i) Nokia
ii) Samsung
iii) Apple
iv) Microsoft
v) Oracle, with their own flavor of Linux.
vi) Cray - obviously concentrating on parallel processing

Then there's the possibility of a mobiles apps for Android and Apple phones
that have a subset of functionality without internet access, and better
access with internet access.



Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT,
UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)

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Re: [sage-devel] Sources of funding - perhaps computer manufacturers?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 13 September 2015 at 18:31, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Sunday, September 13, 2015, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) <
> drkir...@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> A ticket I opened years ago about a problem on AIX, got closed recently.
>> It got me thinking about something  whose usefulness could well extend
>> beyond one issue building Sage on AIX.
>>
>> I gather William is having problems getting funding from NSF and similar
>> places. I wonder if it's time to look at this a different way. Based on
>> things in the past
>>
>> 1) Sun sponsored a port to Solaris, and paid the salary of someone.
>>
>
> You are misremembering slightly.  Sun didn't give us a penny and
> definitely didn't fund Michael Abshoff to work on the port.  Sun gave
> UW one computer and some publicity, then a few months later they got bought
> buy oracle and all education outreach went silent.
>

OK, I was mistaken. It is a long time ago - back in 2009 we got t2.math I
think.


>
>
>
>> Unfortunately the computer they donated (t2) was not suited to the task,
>> but that is irrelevant now. We did eventually get Sage ported to Solaris.
>>
>> 2) Someone from IBM contacted William some time ago an IBM funded port to
>> AIX. I got involved, as I did have an AIX box, but nothing ever came of it.
>>
>
> We exchanged emails back and forth for a while which got my hopes up
> temporarily but it was very clear there would be $0 support there.
>

Agreed, the AIX interested from someone at IBM did go anywhere. But that
does not mean that an approach to other hardware/software vendors would
fail. If funding has dried up from research grants, perhaps another
approach is needed.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Sources of funding - perhaps computer manufacturers?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 13 Sep 2015 21:49, "William Stein"  wrote:

>> Agreed, the AIX interested from someone at IBM did go anywhere. But that
does not mean that an approach to other hardware/software vendors would
fail. If funding has dried up from research grants, perhaps another
approach is needed.
> I won't be pursuing this.   I can only do so many things at once, and not
focusing would ensure failure.  If somebody else wants to try, please go
for it!

I can't as I don't work in a uni, but perhaps others could.  Anyway it was
just an idea.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Why am I getting tons of old sage-trac emails?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 7 September 2015 at 06:12, David Roe  wrote:

> Frédéric Chapoton was removing tab characters from the description
> field on lots of old tickets.  He has since stopped, upon request.
> There's a recent thread about an alternate solution to the problem he
> was trying to solve.
> David
>

Thank you for the explanation. I realized I've participated in 132 tickets
- I'd hate to get an email about each one.

Dave

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[sage-devel] Why am I getting tons of old sage-trac emails?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

My inbox seems to be filling up with tons of emails about trac tickets I
opened years ago and were fixed years ago.

The following is an example of the probably 50-100 tickrts I have been
involved with.

http://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/9025

was opened 5 years ago, fixed and merged 5 years ago, but updated in the
last 12 hours.

David Kirkby.

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[sage-devel] It's confusing including both "configure" and "Makefile" in source.

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

Most unix programs distributed in source code form have a configure
script  generated from configure.ac, but do **not** include a
Makefile. The Makefile is  generated by the configurae script, to
suite the configuration of the platform
it is running on.

Other programs don't have a configure script, but instead have a
Makefile. These tend to be much rarer now.

But Sage has both in the top-level directory, leaving users to wonder
whether  they should run

$ ./configure

or

$ make

If the configure script is not being used, then I suggest it is
removed from the  distribution - despite the top of it says

dnl Version 0.7 written by David Kirkby, released under the GPL version 2.
dnl in January 2010

If it is being used, then the Makefile should not be there.
It seems a bit confusing to have both to me, but perhaps others disagree.

Dave


Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT,
UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)

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[sage-devel] Pretty confusing problem stoping Sage 6.9.beta5 even try to build on OpenSolaris - it used to build fine

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

8
RUBIKS=rubiks-20070912.p18
RW=rw-0.7
SACLIB=saclib-2.2.6
SAGE_MODE=sage_mode-0.14
SAGENB=sagenb-0.11.4
SAGETEX=sagetex-2.3.4
SCIPY=scipy-0.14.0
SCONS=scons-1.2.0
SETUPTOOLS=setuptools-18.1
SINGULAR=singular-3.1.7p1.p0
SIX=six-1.9.0
SPHINX=sphinx-1.2.2.p0
SQLITE=sqlite-3.8.4.3
SYMMETRICA=symmetrica-2.0.p9
SYMPOW=sympow-1.018.1.p11
SYMPY=sympy-0.7.6
TACHYON=tachyon-0.98.9.p5
TERMCAP=termcap-1.3.1.p3
THREEJS=threejs-r70
TIDES=tides-2.0
TOPCOM=topcom-0.17.4.p0
TORNADO=tornado-4.1
VALGRIND=valgrind-3.10.0
ZEROMQ=zeromq-4.0.5
ZLIB=zlib-1.2.8.p0
ZN_POLY=zn_poly-0.9.p11
*** ALL ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES BEFORE BUILD: ***
_=/usr/bin/env
_AST_FEATURES=UNIVERSE - att
A__z="*SHLVL
COLORTERM=gnome-terminal
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/tmp/dbus-e3F2Z7SXOP,guid=3e523c959d9266910ff15cfd55dc19b5
DESKTOP_SESSION=gnome
DISPLAY=:0.0
DTSTARTIMS=False
EDITOR=vi
G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=yes
G_FILENAME_ENCODING=@locale,UTF-8
GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT=us
GDM_LANG=en_US.UTF-8
GDMSESSION=gnome
GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID=this-is-deprecated
GNOME_KEYRING_SOCKET=/var/tmp/keyring-mMbN5V/socket
GTK_IM_MODULE=iiim
GTK_RC_FILES=/etc/gtk/gtkrc:/export/home/drkirkby/.gtkrc-1.2-gnome2
HOME=/export/home/drkirkby
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/gcc-4.6.0/lib:/usr/local/gcc-4.6.0/lib/amd64
LOGNAME=drkirkby
MAIL=/var/mail/drkirkby
MAKE=make -j12
MAKEFLAGS=
MAKELEVEL=1
MFLAGS=
ORBIT_SOCKETDIR=/var/tmp/orbit-drkirkby
PATH=/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/build/bin:/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/src/bin:/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/local/bin:/usr/local/bins-for-sage:/usr/local/gcc-4.6.0-delayed/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/texlive/2010/bin/i386-solaris/:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
PREREQ_OPTIONS=--disable-compiler-checks
PWD=/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/build/make
PYTHONPATH=/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/local
SAGE_EXTCODE=/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/local/share/sage/ext
SAGE_LOCAL=/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/local
SAGE_LOGS=/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/logs/pkgs
SAGE_ORIG_PATH_SET=True
SAGE_ORIG_PATH=/usr/local/bins-for-sage:/usr/local/gcc-4.6.0-delayed/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/texlive/2010/bin/i386-solaris/:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
SAGE_PARALLEL_SPKG_BUILD=yes
SAGE_ROOT=/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5
SAGE_SPKG_INST=/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/local/var/lib/sage/installed
SAGE_SRC=/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/src
SAGE_VERSION=6.9.beta5
SESSION_MANAGER=local/hawk:/tmp/.ICE-unix/21394
SESSIONTYPE=1
SHELL=/bin/bash
SHLVL=4
SSH_AGENT_PID=21486
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/var/tmp/keyring-mMbN5V/socket.ssh
TERM=xterm
USER=drkirkby
USERNAME=drkirkby
WINDOWID=74306895
XAUTHORITY=/var/run/gdm/auth-for-drkirkby-HjaWAb/database
XDG_SESSION_COOKIE=b757f66a441cdee9ea218d154ae5d81d-1440487859.585437-238204952
XMODIFIERS=@im=iiimx
***
make[1]: Entering directory
`/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/build/make'
make -j12
/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/local/var/lib/sage/installed/prereq
make[2]: Entering directory
`/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/build/make'
make[2]: warning: -jN forced in submake: disabling jobserver mode.
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/ginstall -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... config/install-sh -c -d
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make -j12 sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether make -j12 supports nested variables... yes
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... yes
checking for root user... no
configure: WARNING: you should use --build, --host, --target
configure: WARNING: you should use --build, --host, --target
configure: error: unrecognized option: `-j12'
Try `./configure --help' for more information
If you would like to try to build Sage anyway (to help porting),
export the variable 'SAGE_PORT' to something non-empty.
make[2]: ***
[/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/local/var/lib/sage/installed/prereq]
Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/build/make'
make[1]: *** [all-toolchain] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.9.beta5/build/make'

real0m0.360s
user0m0.115s
sys0m0.188s
***
Error building Sage.

The following package(s) may have failed to build (not necessarily
during this run of 'make all'):

The build directory may contain configuration files and other potentially
helpful information. WARNING: if you now run 'make' again, the build
directory will, by default, be deleted. Set the environment variable
SAGE_KEEP_BUILT_SPKGS to 'yes' to prevent this.

make: *** [all] Error 1
drkirkby@hawk:~/sage-6.9.beta5$



Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT,
UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900

Re: [sage-devel] Announcing $0M in new funding for the SageMathCloud over the next 3 years

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 8 July 2015 18:17, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote:

 I now have absolutely no NSF funding at all to support any
 Sage-related (or other) activities anymore.  This is the third
 Sage-related NSF grant proposal I've been on that was rejected in a
 row.

 Anyway, for me personally and SageMathCloud development, and also
 support of Sage development at UW, this is a major blow.

Do you have any feedback as to why your projects were not funded?

Dr David Kirkby
Managing Director
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Chelmsford, Essex, CM3
6DT, United Kingdom
Registered in England and Wales as company number 08914892
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900-2100 GMT)

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Re: (off topic) Re: [sage-devel] The future of polybori

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 11 Jun 2015 20:10, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote:


 It's officially called The Wolfram Language [1] beating out [2] many

It would never surprise me is it was renamed to the Stephen Wolfram
Language.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Extremely broad bug in Sage Integral Computations

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT,
UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)

On 4 June 2015 at 05:02, rjf fate...@gmail.com wrote:

 1.  anyone who believes that sqrt(x^2)  is |x|  is mistaken. As Bill Page
 says, there are two values.
 2. any system that automatically produces |x| can be tricked into
 committing  serious errors.
Currently, Maxima apparently does this. Some people consider this a
 feature. Clearly we
   have a difference of opinion about sqrt.   Mathematica leaves the
 expression unchanged.


What version of MMA leave it unevaluated? Later you say Mathematica 9 gives
ln(2). For what it is worth, on Mathematica 7

Mathematica 7.0 for Sun Solaris x86 (64-bit)
Copyright 1988-2009 Wolfram Research, Inc.

In[1]:= Sqrt[x^2]

  2
Out[1]= Sqrt[x ]


3.  I tried Maxima 5.23.2 on the integral  and got log(-1) which is
 nonsense.



 4. Mathematica  9 answers ln(2).


As a non-mathematician, I feel it would be useful if there were arbitrary
choices of branch cuts, then the software should

1) Pick one, but print it in orange.
2) Print a warning in red
3) All subsequent expressions were printed in orange, to indicate there are
possible ambiguities.

Dave

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[sage-devel] Build problem of zeromq-4.0.5 on 32-bit SPARC processor running Solaris.

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

);
#elif defined ZMQ_ATOMIC_COUNTER_X86
__asm__ volatile (
lock; xadd %0, %1 \n\t
: =r (old_value), =m (value)
: 0 (increment_), m (value)
: cc, memory);
#elif defined ZMQ_ATOMIC_COUNTER_ARM
integer_t flag, tmp;





Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT, UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)

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Re: [sage-devel] Sage 6.7 fails to build on Solaris SPARC - libfplll-4.0.4 problem with isfinite

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 May 2015 00:05, François Bissey francois.bis...@canterbury.ac.nz
wrote:

 On 05/25/15 10:03, François Bissey wrote:

 What version of gcc are you using?


 I see 4.5.0. I don't really know if it is because it is
 too old

I will try a build tomorrow letting Sage build the included and later gcc.
Hopefully that will just work.

Dave.

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[sage-devel] Sage 6.7 fails to build on Solaris SPARC - libfplll-4.0.4 problem with isfinite

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

 'int fplll::FP_NRF::is_finite() const [with F = dpe
_struct [1]]':
nr.cpp:1278:33: error: 'isfinite' was not declared in this scope
make[5]: *** [fplll.lo] Error 1
make[5]: Leaving directory `/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.7/local/var/tmp/sage/bu
ild/libfplll-4.0.4/src/src'
make[4]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[4]: Leaving directory `/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.7/local/var/tmp/sage/bu
ild/libfplll-4.0.4/src'
make[3]: *** [all] Error 2
make[3]: Leaving directory `/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.7/local/var/tmp/sage/bu
ild/libfplll-4.0.4/src'
Error building libfplll

real4m4.438s
user0m13.118s
sys0m10.536s

Error installing package libfplll-4.0.4

Please email sage-devel (http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel)
explaining the problem and including the relevant part of the log file
  /export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.7/logs/pkgs/libfplll-4.0.4.log
Describe your computer, operating system, etc.
If you want to try to fix the problem yourself, *don't* just cd to
/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.7/local/var/tmp/sage/build/libfplll-4.0.4 and type
'make' or whatever is appropriate.
Instead, the following commands setup all environment variables
correctly and load a subshell for you to debug the error:
  (cd '/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.7/local/var/tmp/sage/build/libfplll-4.0.4' 
 '/export/home/drkirkby/sage-6.7/sage' --sh)
When you are done debugging, you can type exit to leave the subshell.

drkirkby@buzzard:~/sage-6.7/logs$

Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT, UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)

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Re: [sage-devel] Sage 6.7 fails to build on Solaris SPARC - libfplll-4.0.4 problem with isfinite

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 24 May 2015 22:04, François Bissey francois.bis...@canterbury.ac.nz
wrote:

 Painful memory from when I tried to compile octave with IBM xlC
 compiler. Before c++11 it is a gnu extension. You probably got
 a compiler that decided to be stricter.

 Francois

I am using gcc though - not the Oracle compiler which I am sure would cough
on a lit of the GNUisms.

It seems someone else reported it in Sage last year, and had a workaround.

https://www.mail-archive.com/sage-devel@googlegroups.com/msg68972.html

I don't know if it ever got reported upstream or a Sage ticket opened.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] hosting the sage cell server

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 14 Apr 2015 22:50, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Sage Developers,

 Is there anybody who would be willing to host the Sage cell server?
 http://sagecell.sagemath.org/

I'm unable to do this, but I rather suspect that you would have zero or
very few offers if the cloud software was closed source,  as you originally
wanted to keep it. I expect it is a lot easier for someone to get
permission from their institution to host open source software than it
would be if it was closed source.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Is Sage living in a state of emergency ?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 18 May 2015 17:29, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote:

 It's also worth keeping in mind that people may offer to host services
 at their university, unaware that what they are doing might
 potentially violate rules.  At least, I know from personal experience
 that this could be an issue..  It's interesting to compare:

 1. Univ of Washington's policy on use of equipment at [1] --

 with

 2. Google's cloud computing use policy at [2] -- basically, don't
 send spam or break the law.

 than I imagined and getting worse.

 I've wondered for years why so few people provide online computing
 resources to the math research community... why I was the main person
 to do be doing this (since I started in the 1990s).   Now maybe I know
 -- I was just really naive.

 The legal situation is probably much different at private universities
 and universities outside of the USA.

 [1] http://www.washington.edu/admin/rules/policies/APS/47.02.html

The first sentence in the link says University facilities, computers, and
equipment are to be used to support its teaching, research, service, and
administrative functions.

I don't see why hosting Sage related facilities do not fall into that.

As with many rules, there is some ambiguity in places, but collaborating
with others outside your own organization is a normal part of academic
research. That includes universities, standards laboratories, and in some
commercial organizations.

I recall once proposing using the results of Wolfram Alpha in doc tests. a
couple of times when the issue of what might be permitted with Mathematica
came up - one was on using the results of Wolfram|Alpha results in doctests.
AlexGhitza thought this might be against the license, and depending on how
you interpreted it, have may have had a point.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!msg/sage-devel/XBV79YDrdxc/zAz0-5Tyih8J

So I emailed Wolfram Research, and they were quite happy for us to do this.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/sage-devel/wolfram$20alpha$20tests$20kirkby/sage-devel/tijz3svNNiE/WOz6mQUGvU8J

I can't help feeling you could (should) have made some direct inquires
internally, to seek permission for what was being done. It seems to me it
would have been easy to justify. You realized that some had abused the
trust you gave in which a home directory was publicly visible, and removed
that facility.

So such justification could include

* The huge benefit it has given to Sage which is a research project.

* The problems removing the facilities would cause

* Any abuse you are aware of, which has been very small, you have acted
quickly to stop.

I don't see what it is not too late to do this now, before it causes any
more issues.

Taking my own case, I contributed quite a bit to increasing the portability
of Sage. Primarily to Solaris, although I'm sure some of the changes have
aided other ports. In a recent list you drew up of contributors, I was in
the top 10, although of course others would argue about the way the list
was generated. Since I don't work for a university, that would have been
impossible without the facilities of UW.

Somehow I think it would be easy to justify what was being done hosting
Sage related activities.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Deprecate or just remove

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 14 Apr 2015 18:26, Niles Johnson nil...@gmail.com wrote:

 another 2c: There is also the option of deprecating, but for less than
the somewhat arbitrary 1 year.

Although I would agree a year is somewhat arbitrary,  a couple of things
are worth bearing in mind about the year.

1) If a lecturer uses Sage in a course,  having a year of stability would
be good, rather than functionality being broken half way through a course.

2) I believe Mathematica gives more than a year announcement.

IMHO if someone makes use of internal undocumented function,  that is their
choice,  and they should not expect any depreciation warning. But if code
in Sage uses that functionality,  then it should not be broken.

I believe that the argument someone made, that was along the lines of If
it not doctested, it is not proved to work so can be removed is a very
weak argument.

Just my 2 pennies,  which deapite the fact that currently £0.02 GBP is
worth more $0.02 USD, doesn't make it any more that your 2 cents.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Mathematica interface

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 22 December 2014 at 00:43, Robert Jacobson rljacob...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi. I have yet to contribute code to sage, but I think I've found something
 easy enough for me to start with. I'd like to talk about how to proceed.

 I found ticket #13892 and the apparent duplicate ticket #15318 which
 indicate that the Mathematica interface is fragile and has been broken for a
 couple of years. In the previous conversation about this in this group a
 couple of years ago it was suggested that the way forward is to use MathLink

Have you seen this ticket

http://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/16703

If you are still keen to contribute your code Robert, I'm sure it
would be appreciated.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Mathematica interface

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 23 December 2014 at 00:55, Robert Jacobson rljacob...@gmail.com wrote:


 On Sunday, 21 December 2014 23:56:24 UTC-5, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby
 Microwave Ltd) wrote:

 There is an open source command line interface to Mathematica.  IIRC it
 uses curses so one can recall previous input, edit it and reevaluate.

 Dave


 When I searched for one last week I was surprised not to find anything. Do
 you have the link?  In any case, such an interface wouldn't be too difficult
 to write.

I finally found it, after looking on the Wikipedia page for
Mathematica, I found the link to jmath.

http://robotics.caltech.edu/~radford/jmath/

I have not used it recently, when when I did, it compiled easily and
worked well. In fact, I guess  I should use it more, as sometimes I
fire Mathematica up just as a quick calculator, without the overhead
of the GUI, and jmath does the trick.

Dave

Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT, UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)

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Re: [sage-devel] Mathematica interface

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 23 Dec 2014 00:55, Robert Jacobson rljacob...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Sunday, 21 December 2014 23:56:24 UTC-5, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby
Microwave Ltd) wrote:

 There is an open source command line interface to Mathematica.

 Dave


 When I searched for one last week I was surprised not to find anything.
Do you have the link?  In any case, such an interface wouldn't be too
difficult to write.

I will search for it when I have my real computer as I am using a mobile
phone now. If not I probably have the source code.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Mathematica interface

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 22 Dec 2014 00:43, Robert Jacobson rljacob...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi. I have yet to contribute code to sage, but I think I've found
something easy enough for me to start with. I'd like to talk about how
to proceed.

 I found ticket #13892 and the apparent duplicate ticket
#15318 which indicate that the Mathematica interface is fragile and has
been broken for a couple of years. In the previous conversation about this
in this group a couple of years ago it was suggested that the way forward
is to use MathLink (now WSTP) to communicate with Mathematica.

That seems a sensible approach to me. At least then one is dealing with a
documented API, rather than an undefined interface that WRI can change from
version or operating system.

 Licensing issues

They need thinking about.

There is an open source command line interface to Mathematica.  IIRC it
uses curses so one can recall previous input, edit it and reevaluate.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] SageMathCloud now open source

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 11 Dec 2014 17:46, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi,

 SageMathCloud is now completely open source.

Great.

 Question: Why is SMC open source?

 Answer: Two of the four NSF grants that very substantially supported
 SMC development had explicit open source requirements.


  -- William

So why was the source not opened earlier?  Was this requirement buried in
the small print and you only just noticed it?

I recall the discussions on here a few months back where you defended the
decision to keep it closed source. That seems strange thing to do if you
knew that two of the grants supporting the work had these open source
requirements.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Maple versus Mathematica

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 1 Dec 2014 05:48, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote:

 Mathematica has weak coverage across much of mathematics related to
 algebraic geometry, arithmetic geometry, number theory and group
 theory.
 In particular, as a specialist in computational number theory, I find
 the functionality in mathematica very minimal, compared to what's in
 Pari, Magma, and Sage.

I don't doubt Mathematica has weak areas, but I think the statement that

... a comparison of sage with the other Systems is quite hard, since all
of the other 4Ms concentrate more or less on particular fields of
mathematic (e.g. Matlab focus on numerics, Mathematica more on Calculus
etc.)
Sage is far from perfect but tries to cover all fields at once.

is inaccurate.

To me Mathematica, like Sage, tries to cover all fields.  Like Sage it has
weak and strong areas.

  I believe any attempt to compare the packages would be very difficult
and

 Just because something is very difficult, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

True.

  I doubt it is possible to remove personal bias.

 I hope nobody expects a marketing document to not contain personal bias.

In my opion, if it is biased, it is not a good comparison.

 I'm disappointed that my post suggesting we create a document like
 this resulted in nothing of value so far

I am not convinced the thread contains nothing of value.  You suggested
something,  and others are saying such a comparison is difficult.

So how could you objectively compare them?

 Do any of you care?  Are you doing anything that will make Sage get
 any closer to its mission statement?

For many people Sage is a viable alternative.

For others I doubt it will ever be unless you paid people to address the
weak areas, rather than them add code that is needed to address their
research interests.

  -- William

Dave

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[sage-devel] Fwd: Try Mathematica desktop + online for free

[Dr. David Kirkby]

For anyone interested, it is possible to get a 15-day trial of the online 
version of the world's ultimate computation system. It might be worth 
comparing the experience with Sage.


 Original Message 
Subject: Try Mathematica desktop + online for free
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 13:46:18 -0500 (CDT)
From: Wolfram Research  i...@wolfram.co.uk



Now is the perfect time to take another look at Mathematica. With
the recent release of Mathematica 10 and Mathematica Online,
you'll have access to a greater level of functionality and
portability than ever before.

With over 700 new functions--the single biggest jump in new
functionality in the software's entire history--Mathematica 10 is
the first version of Mathematica based on the complete Wolfram
Language. Integration with the Wolfram Cloud and access to the
expanded Wolfram Knowledgebase open up many new possibilities for
intelligent computation and deployment.

Version 10 introduces a host of new areas--such as machine
learning, computational geometry, geographic computation, and
device connectivity--as well as deepening capabilities and
coverage across the algorithmic spectrum.

And now the world's ultimate computation system is also available
in the cloud. Mathematica Online lets you use Mathematica
directly from your web browser, offering added convenience and
collaboration opportunities for your workflow.

To try Mathematica for free on both the desktop and online,
request a 15-day Mathematica 10 and Mathematica Online trial
today:
http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/trial

If you're ready to buy, contact us for a quote or visit us online
to explore your purchasing options:
http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/pricing

For additional information about Mathematica, visit:
http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-10

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,


Wolfram Research
Customer Support
http://www.wolfram.com/support-email



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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Maple versus Mathematica

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 27 Nov 2014 20:51, maldun dom...@gmx.net wrote:

 I personally a comparison of sage with the other Systems is quite hard,
since all of the other 4Ms concentrate more or less
 on particular fields of mathematic (e.g. Matlab focus on numerics,
Mathematica more on Calculus etc.)
 Sage is far from perfect but tries to cover all fields at once.

Although I have never tested it myself,  several sources say Mathematica is
the best program for symbolic maths.

But to me at least Mathematica covers a very wide area of mathematics.
Inage processing,  control theory,  number theory, numerics, financial etc.
I think it tries to cover pretty much everything.

I believe any attempt to compare the packages would be very difficult and I
doubt it is possible to remove personal bias.

It is totally objective to say Sage is free, whereas neither Mathematica or
MATLAB are. But just about other comparison else is going to be subjective.

Dave.

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[sage-devel] The code of conduct is getting out of hand - please stop for 2 weeks.

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

Discussions on this are not going in a positive direction. The tone of
the discussions is far worst than anything I have seen on here in a
long time.

I think it would be best if everyone stopped discussing it for a
couple of weeks, and revisited it later (I propose Monday the 15th
December).

Maybe if people stop for a while, it will cool the discussions, and
perhaps they can more forward in a positive direction. Since at the
minute, the whole thing is getting quite nasty.

Dave

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[sage-devel] IMHO having sage-abuse publicly readable is a bad idea

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

I voted against the code of conduct, as I did not feel it was well
thought out. Nothing has changed my mind about that - in fact the
discussions just seem to reinforce my view. But that aside, I respect
the decision of a majority.

I always felt it was bad to have Sage developers making decisions
based on submissions to sage-abuse. When William listed the 12 top
contributors and suggested making them the people for sage-abuse, I
said I wanted no part of it, despite  I just got into that list as
#`12.

While I am all for openly sharing ideas and code, it is unreasonable
to expect everything to be open. Since there is going to be a way of
reporting someone for bad behavior, I think there is a valid argument
for that being done privately.  Having a list readable to anyone is
likely to lead to considerable bad feeling for both those reporting
abuse, and those accused of it.

I know a few people wanted that list publicly viewable. I do
understand their reasons, and there are some advantages in that. But
there are some pretty serious disadvantages too. Soon I can see two
lists being producing

a) The number of times each individual has complained. This could be
used to imply they are overly sensitive.

b) The number of times an individual has been complained about.

I think both would be bad.

I wonder how man-hours have been spent on this code of conduct? Far
too many I feel.


Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Code of Conduct

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 22 Nov 2014 18:38, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote:

 I will start a new thread on sage-devel with a clear title VOTE: code
 of conduct, copy of the proposed code, and [ ] Yes/ [ ] No option,

I hope that your vote states how the code of conduct will be administered,
how readers of sage-abuse will be selected, what (if any) relevant
qualifications they would have,  what (if any) relevant experience they
would have etc.

I think this is a case of the devil is in the detail. In other words,
the details of how such a scheme would be run would determine if it was a
good or bad thing.

If there was a yes vote, without the details being ironed out before the
vote, there would then follow hundreds more emails about how to administer
the code of conduct. The end result would probably be something only half
the people that voted yes agree with.

Normally when people are asked to vote for something, they are given
*details* of what they are voting for.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Code of Conduct

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 21 Nov 2014 22:22, Dima Pasechnik dimp...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'd say it's OK to have such a code, but it's not really OK to actively
enforce
 it. Such an active enforcement would only be counterproductive, if not
 outright impossible.

 Dima

Is there any point in having something that is not enforced? That would
just seem a waste of time to me.

I note that you used the word active a couple of times. Do you think a
code of conduct would lead to any benefits due to passive means, and if
so how?

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] VOTE: code of conduct - ends Monday at midnight, PST.

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

[x] No -- do not adopt the code of conduct stated below

David Kirkby

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Re: [sage-devel] Maple versus Mathematica

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 18 Nov 2014 22:37, Stefan stefanvanz...@gmail.com wrote:

 I don't know if I simply lack the appropriate Mathematica knowledge, but
years ago, when I implemented matroids
 lM = Map[If[# == 0, 0, 1] , M[[2]][[#[[2]]  /@ M[[3]], #[[2]]  /@
M[[4, {2}];

I am no expert on Mathematica, but Mathematica code does not need to be so
crytic.

Anyway,  is it any less readable than this code to plot the Mandelbrot set?

http://preshing.com/20110926/high-resolution-mandelbrot-in-obfuscated-python/

Or this C code

http://www.ioccc.org/2013/birken/birken.c

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: Code of Conduct

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 18 Nov 2014 18:36, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote:

 the top 12  all time list of contributors to Sage, in order, are:

   - William Stein
   - Mike Hansen
   - Volker Braun
   - Jereon Demeyer
   - Nathann Cohen
   - Robert Bradshaw
   - Robert Miller
   - Simon King
   - John Palmieri
   - Jason Grout
   - Nicholas Thiery
   - David Kirkby

 We could:

   1. Create a private mailing list called sage-abuse with these people
 as members.

I don't know if I am the only one of the top 12 contributors who doesn't
want to be in the sage-abuse list, but count me out.

I don't feel qualified to do such a task. In fact,  I think I have been
accused of being abusive before. Without naming any names, I can think of
at least two others in that list which would be inappropriate people.

I think the who idea is quite flawed to be honest. Maybe the whole thread
should go to sage-flame, which I don't subscribe to.

David Kirkby.

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Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 15 November 2014 16:44, Anne Schilling a...@math.ucdavis.edu wrote:
  Code of Conduct

 Thanks for the links to the guidelines. It is interesting to see how other 
 communities handle this.
 Dave's question was how situations will be handled when a violation occurs or 
 that are reported.
 Does your community have experience with this?

 Best,

 Anne

Unless there is another Dave, my question is not what you describe Anne.

We were asked to vote whether this code of conduct should be
introduced, yet it seems illogical to vote when the makeup of the
administrators and those reading sage-abuse are not stated. Things
that come to mind are:

1) Are the administrators and readers of sage-abuse going to be
professionally trained to handle such situations?
2) Is it going to be a sub-set of sage developers, and if so who chooses them?

I think there is probably a closer relationship between the members of
sage-devel than on many open-source projects. Many on sage-devel are
students of others of sage-devel. Many have junior roles in
universities where others have more senior roles in the same
department. I doubt that situation is as common on other projects, so
I believe care would be needed in making comparisons with the
usefulness of similar codes of conduct on other open-source
communities.

Without knowing the makeup of those lists, and how they are chosen, in
*my* opinion it is not possible to make an informed judgement about
the proposal.

Since opinions on this proposal are quite split, and those that have
them quite vocal on it, I do wonder if the introduction of such a code
of conduct might actually cause a bigger split. It may be a case of
the medicine is worse than the symptoms.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Code of Conduct

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 13 November 2014 18:48, Volker Braun vbraun.n...@gmail.com wrote:
 and welcome everyone to
 vote on it.


 Code of Conduct
 ---

 If you believe someone is violating the code of conduct, we ask that you
 report it by emailing sage-ab...@googlegroups.com. The group administrators
 will consider the issue and explore resolutions.

What will be the background of the group administrators, and the
people who receive posts from sage-ab...@googlegroups.com?

Are these people going to have a background in human resources and/or
be trained in this area?

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 14 November 2014 09:22, Bruno Grenet bruno.gre...@gmail.com wrote:
 2014-11-14 10:05 GMT+01:00 rjf fate...@gmail.com:

 My point here is that an unenlightened and obscure part of  a problem
 with one computer program has (I think mistakenly) been elevated to
 a discussion of mathematics, open source, computer program reliability,
 etc.  It was probably not reviewed by any computer scientist with
 expertise in computer
 algebra systems.   Should AMS publish a followup?  Should it try to
 find appropriate reviewers this time?


 I may precisely be because the article was not reviewed by someone with
 expertise in computer science and thus because it was a very naive article
 (at least I feel so, when the authors conclude that mathematicians should
 use two distinct software to check their results!), that it would be a nice
 thing to have a follow-up explaining precisely that the approach proposed in
 the previous article was too naive and that there are solutions to behave in
 a scientifically acceptable manner.

 Bruno

I think Bruno has a good point. The fact the original article in a
maths journal is quite flawed in some ways, does warrant a follow up
comment.

If you search the archives, you will see I contacted Wolfram Research,
asking whether we could compare the output of Wolfram Alpha, and
record that in the doc tests. They agreed - despite some saying they
would ignore my request. So I am not totally against comparing
software A to B. Using Wolfram Alpha is in some ways preferable to
Mathematica, as it is free to use (or at least was).

But the naive approach proposed by the trio of mathematicians can lead
one into a false sense of security, because of the amount of code that
is published with a license that permits its incorporation into
closed-source software. I have shown, beyond any reasonable doubt,
that Mathematica 7.0.1 on Solaris used both GMP and ATLAS.

There is also the possibility that two or more pieces of software make
use of an algorithm that is in itself flawed, or from a paper that has
a typo.

I personally think a follow up highlighting the danger of their
proposed approach is actually more useful than documenting how a
particular bug was corrected in Sage, and also has a far greater
likelihood of being accepted for publication.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 12 November 2014 20:35, Ursula Whitcher whitc...@uwec.edu wrote:

 Article at

 http://people.uwec.edu/whitchua/notes/sagebugprocess.pdf

 has been updated based on feedback.

 UAW


A bit more feedback -  from a non-mathematician.

1) It would be better if rather than over-writing an old version of
your document, you wrote a revised version and called is
sagebugprocess-vesion-2 or similar.

2) Change Working mathematicians have an alternative to comparing the output
of di erent(sic) black boxes: 

to Working mathematicians have a much better alternative than to
compare the output
of different black boxes, which may well share some of the same code

2) The phase A very con dent(sic) user might move straight to the
next step: creating a ticket is wrong.

You need to be a particularly confident use to report a bug in a trac
ticket. I have reported bugs in software I know very little about, but
enough to know there is a bug.

Actually fixing the bug requires *ability*, rather than confidence. A
totally incompetent user could try to fix the bug, but make a complete
mess of it. But you stated something quite different.

3) You have totally missed the point I made, which Karl-Dieter Crisman
wrote was a very good point. This is that comparing the output of two
black boxes may well be comparing the output of two *identical* bits
of code.

I just checked the libraries for Mathematica version 7.0.1 on Solaris
x86, and a view of the names of them

libML64i3.so
libML32i3.so
liblapack.a
libcblas.a
libsndfile.so.1
libf77blas.a
libatlas.a
libgmp.so.3
libQtXml.so.4
libQtGui.so.4
libQtSql.so.4
libQtNetwork.so.4
Qt-Plugins
libGLU.so
libGLU.so.1
Mesa
libQtSvg.so.4
libaspell.so.1
libQt3Support.so.4
libMesaGL.so
libMesaGLU.so
libQtCore.so.4

would suggest to me that Mathematica is using at least the following
two maths libraries

* ATLAS
* GMP

It would be worth checking a more recent release, to see if things
have changed, but it is largely irrelevant. The fact remains WRI did
use both those maths libraries is good enough.

There's no reason Maple could not use them too. GMP is licensed under
the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), so Wolfram Research and
Maplesoft are well within their rights to do that. In fact, they are
well within their rights to hide that fact, as they could just compile
GMP into a library libfoo.so, and you would be none the wiser.

The mere fact they are black boxes means you don't have a clue. If
there was a bug in ATLAS, comparing the output of Mathematica and
Maple could lead you to a false sense of security, believing you are
using two bits of software to perform a computation, but instead using
the same bit of code twice.

Both you, and the trio of mathematicians seem to have missed this
point. This non-mathematician (i.e. me) thinks it is an important
point !!

4) It might be worth briefly stating that if (hypothetically) such a
bug was found in Sage, rather than just report the bug, the trio could
have inspected Sage, determined the code used to find the determinate
used algorithms A, B and C, using software packages X, Y and Z, then
looked to find the bug in A, B, C or some code which links them
together.

That would hint Sage gets it right, but be more constructive than just
saying it gets it right. You could put that in a few sentances - there
is no need to detail the exact process they would have to use.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 13 November 2014 11:19, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)
drkir...@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk wrote:
 You need to be a particularly confident use to report a bug in a trac
 ticket. I have reported bugs in software I know very little about, but
 enough to know there is a bug.

Of course I mean you do NOT have to be a particularly confident use to
report a bug in a trac.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 12 November 2014 20:18, Ursula Whitcher whitc...@uwec.edu wrote:
 On 11/11/2014 3:41 AM, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) wrote:

 If I am honest,  I am not that convinced it is a good follow up comment,


 OK, I won't put your name on it ;)

You can if I ultimately feel the submitted version is good !

 Thanks for the comments!

 1) Add a time line. How long it took from the reporting of the bug,  to
 the bug fixed, peer reviewed, then to release of a new
 alpha/beta/release candidate and finally to the release of a stable
 version with the bug fixed.

 I suspect it was faster than the year or so the bug has remained in
 Mathematica.


 All I can see from trac is that everything happened 22 months ago.  How do I
 find how long it took to go from positive review to stable release?

I need to go to a hospital soon, so are not going to give full
details, but a search of sage-release would show the dates when the
release manager made a particular release. I think times (in days) are
far more useful than actual dates, but you can work out the days from
the dates.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

LOn 13 Nov 2014 11:19, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) 
drkir...@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk wrote:

 4) It might be worth briefly stating that if (hypothetically) such a
 bug was found in Sage, rather than just report the bug, the trio could
 have inspected Sage, determined the code used to find the determinate
 used algorithms A, B and C, using software packages X, Y and Z, then
 looked to find the bug in A, B, C or some code which links them
 together.

I meant bug in X, Y or Z, rather than A, B or C.

But thinking about it more, there could be an error in algorithm A, B or C.
Or perhaps use of such an algorithm was inappropriate. Clearly with open
source software,  a lot more possibilities exist if a bug is found.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 13 Nov 2014 11:27, Jeroen Demeyer jdeme...@cage.ugent.be wrote:

 On 2014-11-13 12:19, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) wrote:

 di erent(sic)
 con dent(sic)

 I think these are font issues with your PDF reader. You are missing the
glyphs for the ligatures ff and fi. I don't have this problem (qpdfview
on Gentoo Linux)

Thanks.  I was using Acrobat Reader on Solaris.

Anyway,  I think there are are some fundamental flaws in the paper.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 10 Nov 2014 23:08, Ursula Whitcher whitc...@uwec.edu wrote:

 On 11/5/2014 8:24 AM, Willia . s J. _ .m Stein wrote:

 * By we write up above, I mean you write up something very, very
 rough, post it here, and get feedback.


 Done!

 http://people.uwec.edu/whitchua/notes/sagebugprocess.pdf

 I stuck with Ticket 14032 as my example; I think the tradeoff of
interesting algorithm vs. boring bug is OK for a general math audience.

If I am honest,  I am not that convinced it is a good follow up comment,
but ignoring that, if this was to be the basis of an article, I can think
of some improvements.

1) Add a time line. How long it took from the reporting of the bug,  to the
bug fixed, peer reviewed, then to release of a new alpha/beta/release
candidate and finally to the release of a stable version with the bug fixed.

I suspect it was faster than the year or so the bug has remained in
Mathematica.

2) Take out the early reference to Sage getting the determinate correct
that Mathematica gets right. Apart from boasting rights,  I am not
convinced it adds anything useful.

3) The initial priority is stated to be major,  but the priority can be
changed by others, and most obviously by the release manager. So not every
blocker bug gets fixed by the next release of Sage.

4) An obvious problem with comparing two black boxes, which was the
proposal of the trio of mathematicians,  is that the black boxes will
probably share some common code. I am pretty sure Mathematica uses ATLAS,
since there was (is still?) a library libatlas.so.

There are a lot of LPGL libraries,  that can be used by closed source
software.

5) There are no conclusions. I would have thought that there should be.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 4 Nov 2014 19:16, rjf fate...@gmail.com
 Perhaps the mathematical community needs to have an open-access database
of bug reports for commercial software. A discussion of the usefulness,
legality,  practicality, commercial benefits etc. of such a database could
be interesting.
 think it's
  not the mathematical community that should do this, but the
 users of software XYZ.

What I think might be useful, to a fairly large number of mathematicians,
and so a reasonable subset of the mathematical community, is a database
where anyone was able to report bugs in Mathematica, Maple, Macsyma and
other commercial mathematics software.  Similar to the the databases of
several open source math packages including both Maxima and Sage, but with
the commercial software package name being such a category.

It would not be particularly time consuming to set such a database up, and
probably one could get a significant number of bug reports. BUT I am not
sure how practical it would be to get

1) User-errors closed as invalid

2) Bugs that get fixed change to fixed when a particular bug was fixed.

With such a database outside the control of the software developers, it may
genuinely useful. Errors such as the one found in Mathematica, could have
been reported much earlier.

That's the point I was trying to make,  and perhaps didn't phrase it too
well.

I think such a suggestion could be usefully put in a response to the
editors about the paper by the trio of mathematicians.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 3 Nov 2014 22:05, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote:

 I usually ignore RJF, but in this I just want to encourage everybody
 else to also ignore him too... regarding his discouragement about
 everything, especially Ursula's excellent suggestion.   I'm sure the
 AMS would be very interesting in publishing

William,
like you I tend to ignore RJF. In engineering terms,  his signal to noise
ratio is too low! Too much rubbish,  with a small amount of useful
information.

But I think you need to take what RJF said in context, which was a reply to
Jason's comment that:

It would be interesting to see if Sage can do the calculation they
identified as buggy in mathematica.  That would make for a cool follow-up
editorial.

I don't think the fact Sage can do something that Mathematica can't would
form the basis of a cool follow-up editorial. It seems almost childish to
try to publish the actual Sage code that computes it correctly.

Unless I overlooked it,  Ursula made no suggestion, so I can't see how it
could be an excellent suggestion. She wrote

So is somebody actively working on a followup editorial/ letter to the
editor?

which is a question,  not a suggestion. Perhaps I overlooked a suggestion
from Ursula. If so I apologise.

I can see that there could be a number of follow up comments about the
article. But too much emphasis on Sage's ability to perform the computation
correctly would make it like a childish pi**ing contest.

The question is really what would a follow comment add, that is genuinely
useful to the readers?

The fact that the database of bugs in open source software are  public, but
Mathematica's bug list are not,  has already been made. I know one of the
reasons WRI gave for not making bug reports public is because often they
are user errors.

Perhaps the mathematical community needs to have an open-access database of
bug reports for commercial software. A discussion of the usefulness,
legality,  practicality, commercial benefits etc. of such a database could
be interesting.

I wonder if Wolfram Research will write anything?

joke Would the modest Stephen Wolfram make a humble apology? /joke

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Can We Trust Computer Algebra Systems?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 29 Oct 2014 14:54, Jakob Kroeker kroe...@uni-math.gwdg.de wrote:

 In fact, in particular cases active testing was already done by some Sage
developers,
 which (I do not know this) probably were not explicitly paid for that
task.

I have certainly fed random inputs to sage and found some that would crash
it. At least some of those bugs got fixed by the authors of the code.
Search on trac for user drkirkby and you will find some.

 I suggest to think about offering bounties for new reported bugs

I don't think that would work.  The major motivation factor for open source
developers is to not to make money from it. I suspect one could earn more
stacking shelves at the local supermarket than on getting paid to find
bugs.

How would you decide which bug reports get a bounty - waste time on a
vote?

 and spend 10  to 30 percent of funding money for QA related tasks -
 there is a rule of thumb that for three developers one tester is needed.

I have not heard that, and I am sure it must depend to a considerable
amount what the implications of a bug are - in systems where someone's life
depends on the correct functioning of software would be different to a
cheap game.

I think what is really missing from Sage is bug-fix-only releases, where
no new functionality is added - only bugs fixed. This is pretty standard
for both commercial and open source software,  but despite me suggesting
thus several times,  there has never been much appetite for it.

Anyway Jakob, while I don't agree with everything you say, it is good to
see someone else raise the issues of how to increase software quality.

Whilst I think the signal to noise ratio from RJF is too low, his example
of weather forecasting get me thinking.  It must be particularly tricky in
that sort of software to find bugs, when everyone knows it will not be
perfectly accurate.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 Oct 2014 05:07, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 7:32 PM, Jason Grout
 jason-s...@creativetrax.com wrote:

  And here's a public worksheet:
 
https://cloud.sagemath.com/projects/49a2531d-9d02-42c9-9db6-f9551fbfa59e/files/2014-10-24-212837.sagews
 
  (Thanks, William, for making public worksheets!)

 They are fun aren't they -- no login required.

When I first clicked link on my Android phone,  I got presented with
requiring me to log in or create an account.  I thought I would not call
that public and didn't it much more thought - I could not be bothered to
create an account.

Then Williams comment made me look again.

On my phone there are three browsers.

1) Internet - the only one installed when one buys the phone

2) Firefox,  which I installed

3) Google Chrome which I also installed.

With Firefox and Chrome I get to a page that works,  but not for the
default browser. You might want to read the browser type and issue
appropriate warnings for incompatible ones.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 Oct 2014 01:55, Jason Grout jason-s...@creativetrax.com wrote:

 The AMS Notices has a column about using computers to do math, dwelling
on some problems they had with Mathematica:

  http://www.ams.org/notices/201410/rnoti-p1249.pdf

Somewhat related I see an example last week of where I think the use of
computer software can be a problem.

I was at a meeting organised by Keysight (formally Agilent) on THz
technology.  There was a presentation about the verification of vector
network analyzers at THz frequencies by someone working at the National
Physics Laboratory (NPL) in the UK - the UK equivalent of NIST in the USA.
He had essentially created a verification device out of hollow metallic
waveguide.  The electrcal properties of the waveguide were computed using
CST Microwave Studio, which is a 3D electromagnetic simulation program
costing well over 10x that of Mathematica.

In order to compute the uncertainty in the electrical properties of the
waveguide things like the surface roughness of the metal, uncertainty in
the length, width, height etc.

I know from experience that there are many similar packages to CST. They
all basically compute numerical solutions to Maxwell's Equations,  but
don't use identical methods. Some for example compute properties using the
Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method, then use an FFT to get
frequency domain data. Other programs use finite elements and work in the
frequency domain.

The results of all the packages generally agree well, but no two would give
exactly the same result.

But when I asked him about the effect of the inexactness of the software,
he admitted that there was no uncertainty assumed for the EM simulator. He
said he could repeat with other simulation software to get an idea of its
effect,  and hopefully develop an analytical solution.

Whilst I expect it would be possible to develop an analytical solution
assuming square walls on the waveguide,  I doubt one could do it taking
into account all the mechanical errors in making these.

So this was a national standards laboratory developing a device to measure
the uncertainty in measurements of state of the art instruments,  but the
software was assumed to be perfect.

I would add this device is not a national standard - he was only reporting
on work taking place at NPL.

Another thing related to the use of 3D electromagnetic simulation software
is the huge number of scientific publications making use of such software.
Realistically nobody could repeat the work. The authors don't make the
files available,  and even if they did, some of these programs cost over
$100,000. They make the cost off Mathematica look like a childs pocket
money.

Dr David Kirkby
Managing Director
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Chelmsford, Essex, CM3
6DT, United Kingdom
Registered in England and Wales as company number 08914892
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900-2100 GMT)

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: The Misfortunes of a Trio of Mathematicians Using Computer Algebra Systems

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 Oct 2014 19:40, Volker Braun vbraun.n...@gmail.com wrote:

 In any case, the real WTF of the article (besides the low information
density) is that Wolfram sat on the bug report for 1 year and did nothing
about it.

There must be tons of Sage bugs reported which don't get fixed. You can
argue about the seriousness of a bug, but I don't think open source
software is immune from that problem. Of course one can search a database
of reported Sage bugs, where for Mathematica the database is not public.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Fwd: [GDML] [gdml] ICERM report and comments

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

 tried to argue this before, with very little success,
suggesting William buy books on the topic for serious developers. I
note that this paper makes the same comments.

I recall one developer sending me an email saying he was not too
bothered about bugs, but would fix them if reported.

8)

Volker Braun's comments about only being left with awk are true, given
the rather stupid statements in the document ICERM-2014-NOTES.pdf

9) There is a fairly negative correlation between the portability of
software and the friendless of its interface. One program I wrote

http://atlc.sourceforge.net/

has been compiled on a huge range of platforms

* Sony Playstation 2
* Cray YMP-EL supercomputer using Cray's UNICOS
* Debian Linux
* Slackware Linux
* Gentoo Linux
* Redhat Linux
* Suse Linux
* IBM's AIX
* Apples's OS X
* HP's HP-UX (both PA-RISC and Itanium)
* SGI's IRIX
* Sun's Solaris
* SCO's UNIXWare
* HP's Tru64
* NetBSD
* OpenBSD
* FreeBSD.

The code is highly portable, and whilst I don't guarantee it will
build on the latest version of these systems, porting it should be
trivial. But the interface is poor, being command-line driven, and
requires another program able to write a Windows bitmap file. (Windoes
paint, Gimp, and a ton of of other software would all work).

I was suggesting the other day that a native port of a subset of Sage
using something like Qt of wxWindows , neither of which I expect will
be around in 20 years from now, although with the code well written,
using a portable back end and a less portable front end, extending the
life of the software would be possible without too much work. But
there would be some.

10) I think 9 points is enough.

Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT, UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: [GDML] [gdml] ICERM report and comments

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 12 September 2014 20:12, rjf fate...@gmail.com wrote:
 Maybe I'm missing the kernel of your annoyance. I was struck by the
 fact that Beebe says nice things about Common Lisp, and maybe that
 was your annoyance -- after all, python version n+1 might be incompatible
 with version n; and maybe there is but one implementation? (Is this
 true?)

You are asking a question to what you know the answer. Don't try to fool us
- you must know Python 3 is not backwards compatible  with version 2.

 whereas a system that compiles on 8 different ANSI common lisp
 implementations, several of which are open-source... strikes his as
 a plus. (Will there ever be an incompatible revision of ANSI CL?
 don't hold your breath...)

But the fact remains that Lisp is quite an obscure languge. Very few
outside computer science students learn it. Whereas learning C++, C,
Python, MATLAB, Labview etc is likely to be beneficial for employment,  the
same is not true of Lisp.

I don't think a program like could exist if developers needed to learn Lisp
first.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] error installing package ppl-1.1

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 9 Sep 2014 00:25, François Bissey francois.bis...@canterbury.ac.nz
wrote:
 But it is almost certain the system glpk
 is the problem.

If so, given Sage ships glpk, and quite a number of other packages to
ensure that we control exactly the versions being linked, then I suspect
the  ppl package needs modifying to ensure it links against the version of
glpk shipped in Sage and not some other version which may be on the system.

Although I have not looked at the code; that should be a fairly easy fix.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: How practical/useful would a native windows subset be?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 28 August 2014 16:55, Vincent Delecroix 20100.delecr...@gmail.com wrote:
 2014-08-28 17:44 UTC+02:00, Jori Mantysalo jori.mantys...@uta.fi:

 I am now thinking for example university class using Sage as a part of
 some course. Teachers don't want to use time for being it-support;
 students do not try installing Sage, if it SEEMS to be complicated.

 Note that for teaching/installation there is an alternative: tell the
 students to come with a USB stick and just clone the sage-debian live
 (http://sagedebianlive.metelu.net/). It is very easy to use and all
 students will have exactly the same system. The procedure to duplicate
 the key is integrated inside the key, so the time to set up 200 keys
 is in theory just log(200)/log(2) * (time of one install), ignoring
 the fact that you could clone several keys at once.

 The key is definitely not set up for development. But it's still
 doable using a local drive (intensive access to the filesystem on a
 USB stick will just burn it quickly).

 It is completely self contained with no it-support needed (except that
 you need computers that are able to boot on USB).

 Vincent

I can't imagine a single *professional* system admin in a university
would want students booting computers from USB sticks. I'm not saying
some random lecturer who takes on a system admin role would mind, but
from a security point of view, having PCs booting from a USB stick is
risky. Malicious software could do any sort of nasty. I've reset
passwords on Windows machines doing that - boot Linux, mount the NTFS
file system, edit the files.

If students have their own laptops, then it is less of a risk, but I
would imagine the lecturer would spend all his/her time trying to help
a student get his/her laptop to boot from a USB stick. You would need
to get into the BIOS for that, and many computers are different about
how that works.

Of course, the same argument can be made about booting from any form
of ISO image, such as a DVD.

Maybe use of Sage should at some point be preeded by some lectures on
the use of Linux. I was reading in the UK today that *programming* is
to be made part of the compulsory school curriculum in England.  I'm
not sure by what age, but given people can leave school at 16 here, it
will be before 16. Given mathmaticians are going to be using
Mathematical software, teaching them enough of the OS on which that
software runs is probably not a bad idea. I believe it happens in
Germany for example.



Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: How practical/useful would a native windows subset be?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 28 Aug 2014 21:58, kcrisman kcris...@gmail.com wrote:


 However, can we put VirtualBox and Sage to one .exe? What is really
needed
 is to convert http://wiki.sagemath.org/SageAppliance to be just 1)
 Download this .exe, 2) Doubleclick it, 3) Ready.

 Yes, I wrote an installer which included the VirtualBox installer and
the Sage Appliance inside one exe.
 Technically it is no problem,


 The Holy Grail...  one click to install Sage on Windows!


 I don't know about legal implications.


  Yeah, I think that is the problem :(

There's no harm in asking Oracle,  who I assume own VirtualBox, for
permission to do something outside the license conditions.

Some years ago there was a discussion about using Wolfrom|Alpha in a way
that some believed was outside the terms of use of the site. I sought
permission to do it,  and Wolfram Research said that they would permit us
to do it. The sad thing is I don't think we ever used it,  but that's
another issue.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: How practical/useful would a native windows subset be?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 27 Aug 2014 02:13, Bill Hart goodwillh...@googlemail.com wrote:

 The biggest problem by far is the upstream projects who do not accept
patches into their repositories to support Windows, and aren't willing to
make the changes to their codebase to support Windows 64. Nor do they
continue to maintain the ports once it is done.

I can't say I have ever looked at it, but if true it is an odd attitude.  I
found *generally* that upstream projects were happy to take Solaris
patches.  A patch I made for GSL to run on AIX was accepted upstream.

I an no fan of Windows,  but with so many programs only working on Windows,
or tested more on Windows,  I see it as a necessary evil.

 This attitude in the Open Source community to Windows 64 really bugs me.
It's a decade old technology, and not going anywhere.

Lots of open source programs run on Windows, and with Windows being more
and more 64 bit,  they will either have to adapt or

 A port of Sage to Windows 64 is probably not a viable project. It would
take years of effort by numerous individuals to accomplish. And it would
bitrot before it was even completed. But the fact that it isn't viable
right now doesn't mean that upstream projects shouldn't support Windows 64
so that if Sage ever wants to do such a port, it would be possible.

 Five projects Sage doesn't have to worry about are:

 * flint
 * gmp/mpir
 * mpfr
 * gmp-ecm
 * GNU Scientific library

Maxima has a native Windows application,  so that would work too. Maxims
uses ECL which is very portable.

Unfortunately, I don't think Maxima has a library interface, do once that
is added, any attempt to make a more consistent user interface would be
hampered.

 I understand that Sage uses things like Lisp, Java, Python, Cython, etc.
So the above doesn't help much with Sage overall. But perhaps it will help
raise awareness for projects that are using C and assembly only.

 Bill.

Call it Mini Sage, foobar or something else, it appears to me a
significant subset of Sage could be built into a native application.

If Qt was used to build it, the application would run on an iPhone too.

Anyway,  it was just an idea I had.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: How practical/useful would a native windows subset be?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 27 August 2014 07:41, Harald Schilly harald.schi...@gmail.com wrote:


 On Monday, August 25, 2014 10:15:41 AM UTC+2, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby
 Microwave Ltd) wrote:

 It seems Sage really could do with a native windows port.


 Just my 2 cents (after not really reading the whole thread)
 What about andLinux, which also has an X server included?
 http://www.andlinux.org/

Looks interesting. Not a native port as I origially suggested, but
possibly a better way than a virtual machine.

 ... and since that website looks kind of dead, underneath is coLinux which
 is still active
 http://www.colinux.org/

Maybe I missed it, but it did not look to me as if there was any code
published in a few years, but the website seems to have been updated.



Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT, UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: How practical/useful would a native windows subset be?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

  The download size of such a subset would be smaller than the full version 
  and MUCH smaller that a virtual machine image, as one doesn't need to 
  include a complete operating system too.

 That's not true.  E.g., Puppy Linux is around 50MB, and is a complete
 useful operating system.  In fact, I used to build the Sage VM
 (targeted at windows) using Puppy Linux years ago.

  -- William

OK, but it still doesn't get around the problem one needs to install
VirtualBox, and the whole process of installing virtual machines is
really alien to a lot of Windows users.

Personally I find installing virtual machines quite easy and useful,
but it seems to be a barrier for some at least.

Dave

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[sage-devel] How practical/useful would a native windows subset be?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

It seems Sage really could do with a native windows port. I am wondering
how practical it would be to make a version which is a subset of Sage, with
something like Qt which runs on Windows,  Linux,  OSX and Solaris and has
the look and feel of those platforms.

It could make a Google Summer of Code project.

If a small subset could be implemented,  the chances are reasonable that
others might port more bits. If it could do more than a scientific
calculator,  that would probably be enough to get people using it.  Call it
Mini Sage or something similar to indicate it is not the full version.

I believe that there are some are some bits of Sage that uses fork and has
have no Windows equivalent, so those bits could be left out. Perhaps at a
later date a complete rewrite of such bits could form other GSOC projects.

The download size of such a subset would be smaller than the full version
and MUCH smaller that a virtual machine image, as one doesn't need to
include a complete operating system too.

Wolfram Research did at one point offer a subset of Mathematica, which i
think was called Calc Centre, but I think it was a bit of a flop, so I
don't think that they sell it any more. That might be an argument for not
doing a partial native port.

If a partial port was done, avoiding the need for a browser, one could use
its own parser and provide a more confident interface.  Although many are
critical of Mathematica's interface,  it is more consistent than that of
Sage.

Dave

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[sage-devel] Re: How practical/useful would a native windows subset be?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 Aug 2014 10:37, maldun dom...@gmx.net wrote:

 Hi!

 Python XY ( https://code.google.com/p/pythonxy/ )and WinPython (
http://winpython.sourceforge.net/) do this for years now and are working
properly. Maybe one can use this as a start since many of the needed
prequisites are there.

Yes, maybe.

 but why not concentrate on a working cygwin port,

I think people  been working on it for years and despite a lot of time and
effort spent on it, it has never been completed. I think there are a number
of reasons it has not been completed,  but lack of effort is not one of
them.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: How practical/useful would a native windows subset be?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 Aug 2014 12:19, Julien Puydt julien.pu...@laposte.net wrote:

 I don't understand why people insist on trying to build the windows port
on windows with cygwin ; it's also possible to cross-build windows ports
I was mainly thinking of a C++ version with its own parser. If that used Qt
or wxWidgits it would be multi platform.  It does need to use Python at all
initially -  if ever.

I guess there is more than one way to approach it, but if one set out with
the aim of nothing much more than a decent scientific calculator,  one
would not need to worry about porting things that are hard.

I would not think it too hard to generate a parser which is linked to the

* GMP
* MPFR
* GNU scientific library

which I would expect would compile with Qt or WxWidgets without too many
changes. If it used Qt, the code could be developed on virtually any
platform.  Producing executables for many mobile phones, including Android
and Apple iPhone and iPad, Linux etc.

By only linking to code and not calling external command-line tools, it
should be possible to create a uniform interface,  which is one of the
criticisms of Sage.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: How practical/useful would a native windows subset be?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 Aug 2014 12:44, Jeroen Demeyer jdeme...@cage.ugent.be wrote:

 I think Sage-on-Cygwin is fay more realistic than a pure native (even
stripped down) version of Sage. I you care about Windows, concentrate your
efforts on the Cygwin port.

Why has so much time been spent on it, without success?

William wrote in 2007 Sage would probably never be built on Cygwin

http://markmail.org/message/fapx25o3kqipdeg2

Then in 2010 described how he got it to build

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/sage-windows/ygK1kJm9p9w

and while I can't find the post,  I think William later expressed some
doubt whether it would ever work properly.

I am on my mobile phone now,  so not too easy to browse the web, but I
pretty sure that the Cygwin port was due to be finished before the Solaris
port.

Maybe there's a case for a fresh start with more modest aims and a cleaner
interface.

Dave

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: How practical/useful would a native windows subset be?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 Aug 2014 14:21, Jeroen Demeyer jdeme...@cage.ugent.be wrote:

 On 2014-08-25 13:27, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) wrote:

 I would not think it too hard to generate a parser which is linked to the

 * GMP
 * MPFR
 * GNU scientific library

 which I would expect would compile with Qt or WxWidgets without too many
 changes. If it used Qt, the code could be developed on virtually any
 platform.

 And the result would be something like this:

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Windows7ScientificCalculatorMode_thumb.png

No it would be s lot better than the Windows scientific calculator you
refere to.

* It would have arbitrary precision in both FP and integer.
* All the functionality of the GSL - Bessel functions for example.
* Highly portable.

Dave.

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Re: [sage-devel] Re: SageMathCloud / closed source / GPL / Spirit of Sage??

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

I think the whole closed source nature is likely to restrict the takeup of
Sage for several broad groups of people when they realise that to get high
performance they are going to need to store sensitive material on a Linux
server they don't control.

As a 50 year old engineer I have worked at three institutions who I know
would not want to put workbooks on a server outside their institution.

a) Ministry of Defence - no way.
b) Airbus - no way. They are very strict on security.
c) Marconi - most unlikely.

1) Many commercial companies are not going to be so keen to put
commercially sensitive material on a server they don't control.
Interlecural  property is valuable company asset.

Suddenly buying distributed licenses for Mathematica is more attractive
from a security point of view. At least Wolfram Research can't look at what
you are doing.

2) Military users are very unlikely to start working on something on a
distributed system they can't totally control.

3) Some academics,  especially those working on mathematics in areas they
know UW specialise in, would perhaps no want to put worksheets on a server
they know prying eyes will see. Why let someone else look at what you are
working on and possibly beat you to publish a paper?

4) Some individuals are just paranoid and will not use a distributed system
they don't control.

No doubt HTTPS will be used to encrypt data in transit.  Maybe worksheets
are stored in an encrypted format on disk. But at some stage the data going
to be in plain text.

Has anyone working on SageMathCloud ever considered that certain users
would not want data stored in a manner they have no control over?

Dave.

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