[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
I can try to build a Sage binary on Fedora 3 if you wish but I'm not optimistic. I know that my Fedora 5 could not build Sage because the compiler was too old. The compiler wasn't too old, it was *borken*, i.e. internal compiler error. IIRC it was some gcc 4.1.0 and as well all know a .0 release is just an extended beta test. FC5's rpm repo offers some gcc 4.1.1 that will likely build Sage just fine. Fedora 3 likely has the same issue. Nope, it ships gcc 3.4.3 which is C99 compliant. I didn't use it recently, but it is quite reliable and any issue with Sage and gcc 3.4 will likely be fixed quickly. Ok. I'll try a fedora 3 build. Sage failed to build in fedora 3 The log is at http://daly.axiom-developer.org/install.log Tim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On May 3, 7:50 pm, root [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: SNIP Ok. I'll try a fedora 3 build. Sage failed to build in fedora 3 The log is at http://daly.axiom-developer.org/install.log Tim Hi Tim, R fails to build since it picks up the system's readline. We have some similar issue with R picking the wrong libpng and now have a ticket open to update to R 2.7 anyway. I will hopefully fix those two issues when updating to R 2.7, so it is likely too late for Sage 3.0.1. Thanks for the error report. I will add this issue to the ticket #3086. We should definitely keep an eye on this and I will look around for some VMWare image of FC3 to do regular build testing so Alfredo isn't duped the week before ISSAC when Sage magically breaks on FC3 again :( Cheers, Michael --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On May 2, 3:19 am, David Joyner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Looks good to me. I think Python is actually in the top 5 languages now, isn't it? just for completeness, released today: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10065 - Readers' Choice Awards 2008 / Favorite Scripting Language: Python (28.9%) h --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On May 1, 2008, at 5:49 PM, William Stein wrote: On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Robert Bradshaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On May 1, 2008, at 2:51 PM, William Stein wrote: Hi, I wrote a new version of my ISSAC talk abstract. What do you think: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I think the previous abstract (version 2) is much better--this abstract seems more a reaction to the recent threads on sage-devel Thanks for your patience with my experiments. Please see abstract number 3: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract3.pdf Let me know what you think.It will probably piss off everybody, but I guarantee you it is the most honest thing I've ever written about Sage. I like it. Here's a couple more suggestions: - In the second sentence the word stupid seems too informal. Maybe unwise/foolish? (Neither of these are as strong though.) - I think there should be a specific rebuttal to Fateman's claims, even a simple Fortunately, he has since been proven wrong. Also, in this paragraph about Sage's growth, it might be worth having a sentence about how it has greatly overflowed its bounds as a number- theoery only tool to cover a wide range mathematics. - Givaro isn't really high precision arithmetic but I can't think of where it fits better - The second-to-last paragraph feels a bit disjointed. What is meant by instead? It also de-emphasizes the contribution of new code and makes it unclear that Sage can do a lot without the 4 M's (whereas I think you intended to say if you have the commercial software, it integrates well). I think this is just due to lots of editing. I really like the last paragraph. - Robert --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Dear William, On May 2, 12:23 am, Bill Page [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The previous abstract (the second one?, definitely not the first) seemed like a good balance to me: What is Sage? What can it do? I agree. The second abstract contains the message (among other things): 1. If you have a standard computational problem then it is very likely that Sage provides the means to solve it This is an important message IMO, because it may convince people to work with Sage. We know the result: If people work with it, they eventually contribute to it. The third abstract almost completely drops message 1. It has the main message: 2. If you have a computational problem that can't be solved with existing software then Sage provides a good framework to produce a solution. This is important, too, and will attract a certain type of users. I suggest to try and combine both messages in one abstract. If you ONLY have message 2., i fear that the people could think that Sage is useless for everyday's work. On the other hand, message 2 is an important point: Sage has an active community and provides framework to develop new things in a hight level of quality. Yours Simon --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Dear William, I am sorry about my previous post, since it was out-dated. My comment did only refer to message number 25 in this thread and to the abstract version at http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf Now, we have http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract3.pdf, and i like this much more. I'd encourage you to also briefly mention an example where the Sage- framework allowed for a solution of new things (such as in linear algebra over cyclotomic number fields), if limited space permits. The last sentence is, of course, rather bold, but that's a matter of personal style. I think the idea to use a Live CD is a very good one. It is good when people have the opportunity to try sage right on the spot. Yours Simon --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Harald Schilly wrote: On May 2, 3:19 am, David Joyner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Looks good to me. I think Python is actually in the top 5 languages now, isn't it? just for completeness, released today: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10065 - Readers' Choice Awards 2008 / Favorite Scripting Language: Python (28.9%) Yes, but that is a subset of the greater number of computer users and while the survey compares languages for general purpose programming this is scripting. But python has a huge impact on scientific computing and that is something that is to the advantage of the mathematical computing in general. h Cheers, Michael --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 5:13 AM, Simon King [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the idea to use a Live CD is a very good one. It is good when people have the opportunity to try sage right on the spot. Is there anyone in the list that can share binaries of Sage 3.x for Fedora Core 3 (a higher FC may work, but I need to test it) ? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On May 2, 2:02 pm, Alfredo Portes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 5:13 AM, Simon King [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the idea to use a Live CD is a very good one. It is good when people have the opportunity to try sage right on the spot. Is there anyone in the list that can share binaries of Sage 3.x for Fedora Core 3 (a higher FC may work, but I need to test it) ? Hi, I don't think we build FC3 binaries at the moment, but a quick glimpse seems to indicate that it ships gcc 3.4.3, so it ought to work. If you can provide us with a slim VMWare imge [minimal install+build essentials] we can build Sage binaries with out regular binary build procedure. One thing that slightly concerns me that FC3 has had support dropped a *long* time ago, i.e. that last supported release is FC8 at the moment. Cheers, Michael --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Alfredo, I can try to build a Sage binary on Fedora 3 if you wish but I'm not optimistic. I know that my Fedora 5 could not build Sage because the compiler was too old. Fedora 3 likely has the same issue. Tim --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On May 2, 9:18 pm, root [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Alfredo, Hi Tim, I can try to build a Sage binary on Fedora 3 if you wish but I'm not optimistic. I know that my Fedora 5 could not build Sage because the compiler was too old. The compiler wasn't too old, it was *borken*, i.e. internal compiler error. IIRC it was some gcc 4.1.0 and as well all know a .0 release is just an extended beta test. FC5's rpm repo offers some gcc 4.1.1 that will likely build Sage just fine. Fedora 3 likely has the same issue. Nope, it ships gcc 3.4.3 which is C99 compliant. I didn't use it recently, but it is quite reliable and any issue with Sage and gcc 3.4 will likely be fixed quickly. Tim Cheers, Michael --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
I can try to build a Sage binary on Fedora 3 if you wish but I'm not optimistic. I know that my Fedora 5 could not build Sage because the compiler was too old. The compiler wasn't too old, it was *borken*, i.e. internal compiler error. IIRC it was some gcc 4.1.0 and as well all know a .0 release is just an extended beta test. FC5's rpm repo offers some gcc 4.1.1 that will likely build Sage just fine. Fedora 3 likely has the same issue. Nope, it ships gcc 3.4.3 which is C99 compliant. I didn't use it recently, but it is quite reliable and any issue with Sage and gcc 3.4 will likely be fixed quickly. Ok. I'll try a fedora 3 build. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Very good! On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 5:51 PM, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I wrote a new version of my ISSAC talk abstract. What do you think: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 5:51 PM, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I wrote a new version of my ISSAC talk abstract. What do you think: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf This is abstract number 3, right? I hope I got that right. Well, ah ... -1. I thought this message sounded like at good idea in the context of the other thread but in this context I find I don't like it much, sorry. :-( It does not sound nearly as good as your email, which made several other points besides the one contained herein. The previous abstract (the second one?, definitely not the first) seemed like a good balance to me: What is Sage? What can it do? This one is more about: What you would like to do to make Sage more than what it is so far. It seems to me that at best that deserves a few minutes toward the end of the second abstract. Regards, Bill Page. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
I liked the abstract2 version better. It had a better overview of the project :) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
In the past I have had 2 distributions that I gave away at ISSAC. The first was my Rosetta collection (about 100 open source systems collected onto CDs). Some of these I eventually put on the ISSAC CD itself (I constructed the CD for 2 years). It was distributed by ACM. The second was an Axiom distribution. Axiom was also on the ISSAC CD. I made enough CDs so that everyone had one distributed with their information packets and I had a pile of 50 CDs that sat on the registration desk. You might consider designating a particular snapshot (say, 3.0) that you plan to package and build onto CDs. If they use Alfredo Portes's Doyen Live CD then people can just boot up their laptops and have Sage running live immediately. Distributing Sage with the registration materials would mean that everyone could try it during or after your talk. In fact, if you find out who is going to make the ISSAC CDs this year you might be able to get the whole CD actually BE a Sage distribution. I don't know who might be doing it this year but Emil Volcheck would certainly know who to ask. Tim Daly --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On May 1, 2008, at 2:51 PM, William Stein wrote: Hi, I wrote a new version of my ISSAC talk abstract. What do you think: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I think the previous abstract (version 2) is much better--this abstract seems more a reaction to the recent threads on sage-devel and doesn't seem to answer as well what Sage is to a new audience. Also, this last abstract makes it clear that Sage is useful to you (or someone else interested in linear algebra over cyclotomic fields/ modular abelian varieties) but if I hadn't heard of these two problems before (the majority of your audience I'm assuming) I wouldn't get the impression at all that Sage was anything that could help me, or that I should be interested in. It also gives the impression that Sage isn't useful yet (clearly not true--I think the quote if Linus about something that almost does what other people want is relevant here.) Though I've never been to ISSAC (someone who has been, correct me if I'm wrong), I get the impression that many of the people there would have little C programs and scripts that they use/develop for research. If this is the case then I think it would be worthwhile expanding on the interfaces portion about how Sage can easily interact with C and command line programs, do non-trivial text processing, and put it all together in one cohesive mathematical environment. - Robert --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
You might consider designating a particular snapshot (say, 3.0) that you plan to package and build onto CDs. If they use Alfredo Portes's Doyen Live CD then people can just boot up their laptops and have Sage running live immediately. In fact, If you used the Live CD to give your talk it would make rather more of an impression on the audience. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Though I've never been to ISSAC (someone who has been, correct me if I'm wrong), I get the impression that many of the people there would have little C programs and scripts that they use/develop for research. If this is the case then I think it would be worthwhile expanding on the interfaces portion about how Sage can easily interact with C and command line programs, do non-trivial text processing, and put it all together in one cohesive mathematical environment. I've been to a fair number of the ISSAC conferences going back into the late 80s. I'd characterize the attendees as the group of people who have developed computational mathematics algorithms. The whole proceedings from 2007 is algorithms of one sort or other. Most of these people have developed a CAS or used a CAS as their primary platform, although by looking at the 2007 papers it is not clear where some of the work was done, but some are quite specific, as in: Jeffery-Hamel Flow with Maple Paul Zimmermann had a paper that used C++ and GMP. Jacob Smith, Gaby Dos Reis and Jaakko Jarvi used Axiom. In general, I don't see reference to the systems or the source code that was used to do the research. As you might guess, I find this flaw to be pretty fundamental. If most of the work were done in Sage, perhaps the standards of publication might change. Tim Daly --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Robert Bradshaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On May 1, 2008, at 2:51 PM, William Stein wrote: Hi, I wrote a new version of my ISSAC talk abstract. What do you think: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I think the previous abstract (version 2) is much better--this abstract seems more a reaction to the recent threads on sage-devel Thanks for your patience with my experiments. Please see abstract number 3: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract3.pdf Let me know what you think.It will probably piss off everybody, but I guarantee you it is the most honest thing I've ever written about Sage. -- William --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
I'm not pissed off about it in fact I think it is a great introduction to Sage. I particularly like the last line. Great job! On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 5:49 PM, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Robert Bradshaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On May 1, 2008, at 2:51 PM, William Stein wrote: Hi, I wrote a new version of my ISSAC talk abstract. What do you think: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I think the previous abstract (version 2) is much better--this abstract seems more a reaction to the recent threads on sage-devel Thanks for your patience with my experiments. Please see abstract number 3: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract3.pdf Let me know what you think.It will probably piss off everybody, but I guarantee you it is the most honest thing I've ever written about Sage. -- William --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Looks good to me. I think Python is actually in the top 5 languages now, isn't it? Maybe Perl is 5 and Python is 6? In any case, my only suggestion is to emphasize the point that *you* needed an alternative to the M's by pointing out somehow that (a) the others are propritary and therefore not sufficiently customizable, (b) your field of speciality (modular abelian varieties) is an extremely technical mixture of a number of areas (algebraic number theory, algebraic geometry, group theory) and *therefore* you needed your software to smoothly combine and interface computations in these different fields. Bad sentence construction, I know, but that's my 2 cents. On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 8:49 PM, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Robert Bradshaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On May 1, 2008, at 2:51 PM, William Stein wrote: Hi, I wrote a new version of my ISSAC talk abstract. What do you think: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I think the previous abstract (version 2) is much better--this abstract seems more a reaction to the recent threads on sage-devel Thanks for your patience with my experiments. Please see abstract number 3: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract3.pdf Let me know what you think.It will probably piss off everybody, but I guarantee you it is the most honest thing I've ever written about Sage. -- William --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Let me know what you think.It will probably piss off everybody, but I guarantee you it is the most honest thing I've ever written about Sage. I like it a lot -- but maybe I'm the choir. :) I can only think of one thing I'd like to see added: a short list highlighting a few of the things that we have fast implementations for in Sage, that trump everything else out there (i.e. HNF) or just don't exist elsewhere. For instance, at the end of #3 on the second page, you could just say Some of the many algorithms in Sage which either aren't available elsewhere, or are vastly faster than the competition, include ... I don't think you should spend any time giving details in the abstract, but I think a short list might grab people's attention. Here are a few typos/grammar issues: - You mention three names (Cannon, Steel, Fieker), and then say I've personally worked with both of those guys ... - end of pg. 1, a sentence starts with and in November 2007 ... - end of pg. 2, pseudotty - pseudo-tty I really like the last sentence. -cc --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
William Stein wrote: On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Robert Bradshaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On May 1, 2008, at 2:51 PM, William Stein wrote: Hi, I wrote a new version of my ISSAC talk abstract. What do you think: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I think the previous abstract (version 2) is much better--this abstract seems more a reaction to the recent threads on sage-devel Thanks for your patience with my experiments. Please see abstract number 3: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract3.pdf Let me know what you think.It will probably piss off everybody, but I guarantee you it is the most honest thing I've ever written about Sage. I finally got a few minutes to read one of your abstracts. I know nothing of the ISAAC attendees other than what's been said here, so I'll let others comment on the appropriateness more fully. Overall, I thought it sounded interesting, but was too informal and I-focused for a conference talk, but it made for an interesting read for me, someone already interested in Sage. Some grammar nitpicks (I hope this isn't a case of premature optimization/nitpicking here): paragraph 2: far far - far (it sounds better with just one far.) paragraph 3: tallented - talented guys - maybe something just a tad bit more formal? ... - . (cut the ellipsis) paragraph 5: and in November - In November (start new sentence) list: second item should be singular a set of interfaces to be consistent with the other items next paragraph: delete ever (it reads better) second to last paragraph: combining - combine * delete the remark to OpenMath; no need to say what we don't have and don't plan to incorporate * range of programs are tied - range of programs is tied * you use pseudo-tty and pseudotty; change one to be consistent * others - other * anywhere from - from anywhere Wow, that last paragraph was rather bold and I'd probably reword it, but you've heard enough advice to do that :). At the very least, I would change need to want and delete the drop everything phrase. Jason --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Thu, 01 May 2008 at 05:49PM -0700, William Stein wrote: Thanks for your patience with my experiments. Please see abstract number 3: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract3.pdf Let me know what you think.It will probably piss off everybody, but I guarantee you it is the most honest thing I've ever written about Sage. You use en dashes (-- in TeX) when you should use em dashes (--- in TeX), such as in Python--easily one of the world's top 10 programming languages--is a... There should be three dashes there. En dashes are used for ranges, typically for pages or years. I might also rearrange the bit about OpenMath, which seems to come out of nowhere; perhaps something like Sage is thus the first [...] meaningful way. This huge range of programs is tied together using Python's excellent extensibility via C libraries and pseudotty's; OpenMath is currently not used in Sage. At any rate, it should be this huge range of programs *is*, not are. (Can you tell that I (1) am a nit-picky LaTeX nerd, and (2) just read Eats, Shoots, and Leaves? :) I like abstract3. I hope it goes well! Dan -- --- Dan Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] - KAIST Department of Mathematical Sciences --- http://math.kaist.ac.kr/~drake signature.asc Description: Digital signature
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 6:19 PM, David Joyner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Looks good to me. I think Python is actually in the top 5 languages now, isn't it? Maybe Perl is 5 and Python is 6? In the latest TIOBE ranking it is #7: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html I think top 10 is thus pretty reasonable given how vague that statement is. In any case, my only suggestion is to emphasize the point that *you* needed an alternative to the M's by pointing out somehow that (a) the others are propritary and therefore not sufficiently customizable, (b) your field of speciality (modular abelian varieties) is an extremely technical mixture of a number of areas (algebraic number theory, algebraic geometry, group theory) and *therefore* you needed your software to smoothly combine and interface computations in these different fields. Bad sentence construction, I know, but that's my 2 cents. On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 8:49 PM, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Robert Bradshaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On May 1, 2008, at 2:51 PM, William Stein wrote: Hi, I wrote a new version of my ISSAC talk abstract. What do you think: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I think the previous abstract (version 2) is much better--this abstract seems more a reaction to the recent threads on sage-devel Thanks for your patience with my experiments. Please see abstract number 3: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract3.pdf Let me know what you think.It will probably piss off everybody, but I guarantee you it is the most honest thing I've ever written about Sage. -- William -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:57 AM, William Stein wrote: Hi, I'm giving a plenary talk at ISSAC in Linz, Austria this summer. I'm supposed to write a 2-page abstract/paper for the proceedings. I just wrote something: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I've been advised by some people on this list to focus on algorithms in Sage and purely technical things, but I've totally ignored that advice and instead written something very social in which I as honestly as possible lay out exactly why Sage exists and try to describe somewhat just what Sage is. I have to submit this in a couple days, but comments are welcome. Hmmm, I have to give it a -1. :-( I don't like it much. But it's your show. ... I really don't think that you will find many people at this meeting who are interested in open source alternatives to commercial software as such. Many of the attendees will have and may still be involved in developing software for the commercial systems. Most are also involved in some form of academic research in computer algebra systems. I don't mean that people wont be interested in hearing about the advantages of open source, but I believe that it would not normally be viewed as their primary motivation or preoccupation. And I think they will probably already have a fairly good idea about why Sage exists. I think the advice you received from other people on this list to focus on algorithms and technical things was probably pretty good for the intended audience. It seems that usually there are three speakers and they are all technical in a general sense. For example at ISSAC 2006 http://issac2006.dima.unige.it there were three plenary speakers: Christopher Umans Group-Theoretic Algorithms for Matrix Multiplication Hennie Poulisse Computational Communicative Algebra Joachim von zur Gathen Who was Who in polynomial factorization and at ISSAC 2005 http://www.mmrc.iss.ac.cn/issac2005 these five: Stephen M. Watt A Framework for Pen-Based Mathematical Computing Prof. Hai Jin The ChinaGrid and its Impact on e-Science in China Bruno Salvy D-finiteness: Algorithms and Applications Bruno Buchberger A View on the Future of Symbolic Computation Wen-Tsun Wu On a Finite Kernel Theorem for Polynomial-Type Optimization Problems and Some of its Applications (perhaps two here somewhat less technical) and ISSAC 2004 http://www.risc.uni-linz.ac.at/about/conferences/issac2004/invitedtalks.html 1. Numerical Algebraic Geometry and Symbolic Computation by Jan Verschelde 2. Triangulations of Polytopes and Algebraic Geometry by Francisco Santos 3. Sum of Squares of Polynomials and Their Applications by Pablo Parrilo - Talking about what Sage is, however does make sense to me. If you are not inclined to speak specifically about how Sage is used in your own or other people's research, then why not say something about how Sage actually achieves integration between such a large number of systems? How do you make Maxima results available to Gap and then compute something that you display a fancy 3d graphic etc. What is the importance of Python as the interpreter? What about trade-offs for compiled code in Cython or interfaces to external libraries? How important is the web-based notebook interface? ... Just some different ideas. I know ideas are cheap, but you did ask. :-) Regards, Bill Page. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
BTW, asking for contributors is the surest way to get zero contributors. You should invite people to try Sage (online) and to download it so it runs faster. Also, I thought of another great reason why they would like Sage. Many of these people write their own libraries. Then you have to write input and output routines to get data in and out of your program. No sane person enjoys this. It's a horrible distraction and a waste of time. But if they use Sage they can easily hook in their libraries using (easy to learn) Python code. If possible, show a very simple example. Something like: you type in a univariate polynomial into Sage and then you call a C library, and use Python code to construct a dense array for C. If the interface code fits on one slide then you are sold. Just remove all the error checking and make it as small as possible. If possible, return a nice result to Sage. For example: use the C code to compute the derivative. It just shows how easy it can be to interface a program with Sage. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Apr 29, 11:57 pm, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm giving a plenary talk at ISSAC in Linz, Austria this summer. I'm supposed to write a 2-page abstract/paper for the proceedings. I just wrote something: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I think what you wrote is a pretty good introduction to what Sage is, but it is a little long on the open source philosophy (which will turn some people off) and it leaves out interesting details. The audience will be very interested in why Sage might succeed, when previous open source efforts have failed to attract the large audience of general purpose users and developers. I suggest the following (some of which you mentioned): 1) python is an easy and widely used high level language which is particularly well suited for interfacing different programs 2) collecting all the existing open source programs has allowed Sage to quickly reach critical mass, ie: it is very usable right now 3) new and interesting things are being brought into Sage (JMol, user interface improvements, etc) 4) new mathematical algorithms and libraries are being developed for Sage (FLINT, Linear algebra, rapid development with Cython, etc) 5) researchers are using Sage right now (list contributors and areas, and papers if possible) 6) Sage is open source I think if you start with the technical merits you can easily win over the audience. These people have heard all kinds of sales pitches, and open source looks like just another crusade. They are all uniformly interested in computing things, and in software they can use for their work. Sage has a very strong case on those grounds, please (I'm begging you) stick to it :) Either way, good luck at ISSAC. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
I would be interested in real word use cases, which demonstrate, why such a system is needed. E.g., I think Simon king did some cool things involving at least Singular, GAP, Cython... On 30 Apr., 12:00, Roman Pearce [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BTW, asking for contributors is the surest way to get zero contributors. You should invite people to try Sage (online) and to download it so it runs faster. Also, I thought of another great reason why they would like Sage. Many of these people write their own libraries. Then you have to write input and output routines to get data in and out of your program. No sane person enjoys this. It's a horrible distraction and a waste of time. But if they use Sage they can easily hook in their libraries using (easy to learn) Python code. If possible, show a very simple example. Something like: you type in a univariate polynomial into Sage and then you call a C library, and use Python code to construct a dense array for C. If the interface code fits on one slide then you are sold. Just remove all the error checking and make it as small as possible. If possible, return a nice result to Sage. For example: use the C code to compute the derivative. It just shows how easy it can be to interface a program with Sage. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
I like it but perhaps I am prejudiced:-) IMHO, SAGE would be dead (or at least a very lonely research project) if it weren't for the fact that it is free and open source. But also, design is an important factor. Some ideas (I hesitate to call them suggestions since it seems fine as is): 1. replace notable community by specific growth (as in derivative) numbers. 2. replace interfaces to all exisiting... by something specific like well-designed command-line interface to Python, GAP, ... (You can't say everything in 2 pages but I personally love the tabbed history and completion of the IPython interface and saw it wasn't mentioned.) 3. A specific example could be mentioned which smoothly integrates several systems. As Michael B suggests, a group invariant computation in a number field mixes GAP (for groups), Pari for the number field (is this correct?), and Singular (for the polynomial ring invariant theory computations). On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:57 AM, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I'm giving a plenary talk at ISSAC in Linz, Austria this summer. I'm supposed to write a 2-page abstract/paper for the proceedings. I just wrote something: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I've been advised by some people on this list to focus on algorithms in Sage and purely technical things, but I've totally ignored that advice and instead written something very social in which I as honestly as possible lay out exactly why Sage exists and try to describe somewhat just what Sage is. I have to submit this in a couple days, but comments are welcome. -- William -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
I agree somewhat with others here that you might want to make this a little more 'technical'. I would start with your sentence Sage itself is... - describe what it is first, then some of its capabilities and technical advantages. As far as open-source and free, I think the best thing is to highlight the concrete advantages this brings: easy collaboration with anyone in the world, possibilities for education and the developing world, verifying correctness of implementations, and the ease of becoming a developer (or to put it another way, the ease of getting your own code in). Your more personal background and reasons for starting it could either go later in the abstract, or you could just put them in the talk itself. Cheers, Marshall On Apr 30, 12:57 am, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I'm giving a plenary talk at ISSAC in Linz, Austria this summer. I'm supposed to write a 2-page abstract/paper for the proceedings. I just wrote something: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I've been advised by some people on this list to focus on algorithms in Sage and purely technical things, but I've totally ignored that advice and instead written something very social in which I as honestly as possible lay out exactly why Sage exists and try to describe somewhat just what Sage is. I have to submit this in a couple days, but comments are welcome. -- William -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washingtonhttp://wstein.org --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Dear Michael, On Apr 30, 12:15 pm, Michael Brickenstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would be interested in real word use cases, which demonstrate, why such a system is needed. E.g., I think Simon king did some cool things involving at least Singular, GAP, Cython... Do you call the computation of cohomology rings of finite p-groups a real world application?? Well, a colleague of mine had cohomology theory of Lie groups in his *applied* math exam (Vordiplom). I never understood how he convinced the people that this is legal... I think my project makes a good use of Sage: - Output of Gap is used as input for the C-programs written by David Green. - Output of the C-programs is input for methods of Cython classes (these classes are resolutions, cochains, chain maps etc). The classes also include a Cython wrapper for C-MeatAxe. - Finding generators and algebraic relations for the cohomology ring involves Gröbner bases computed with Singular. - At some point, i also use LinBox for Gauss algorithm. - Eventually, the output is a graded-commutative quotient ring in Singular. The project works, but definitely it isn't finished yet, there are still many things that ought to be improved. I don't know if William should mention a not-yet-finished project, but i do think it is a nice example of a Sage project. And, by the way, i do think that the main emphasis of the talk should be Sage allows for easy and conceptual programming based on a wide range of high quality math software, so +1 to Roman Pearce. It is good that Sage is free, but at least for me it matters most that it is both easy to use and very powerful. Cheers Simon --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Hi, On Apr 30, 12:26 pm, David Joyner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 3. A specific example could be mentioned which smoothly integrates several systems. As Michael B suggests, a group invariant computation in a number field mixes GAP (for groups), Pari for the number field (is this correct?), and Singular (for the polynomial ring invariant theory computations). Yes, that's another good example. Yours Simon --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Hi Simon! Do you call the computation of cohomology rings of finite p-groups a real world application?? Sorry, I used the wrong terms. I meant something like: nothing synthetic, just composing a few features, but demonstrating, how SAGE can be used to compute an actual research problem. I was asked exactly the same thing on the SINGULAR meeting, when I advertised SAGE, if SAGE is able to tackle the problems, they ( or mathematicians in general) are interested in: I mentioned your work as example. Michael --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
By the way, for me it matters most that Python is a *beautiful* language. Michael On 30 Apr., 14:02, Michael Brickenstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Simon! Do you call the computation of cohomology rings of finite p-groups a real world application?? Sorry, I used the wrong terms. I meant something like: nothing synthetic, just composing a few features, but demonstrating, how SAGE can be used to compute an actual research problem. I was asked exactly the same thing on the SINGULAR meeting, when I advertised SAGE, if SAGE is able to tackle the problems, they ( or mathematicians in general) are interested in: I mentioned your work as example. Michael --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 7:46 AM, Simon King [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Michael, On Apr 30, 12:15 pm, Michael Brickenstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would be interested in real word use cases, which demonstrate, why such a system is needed. E.g., I think Simon king did some cool things involving at least Singular, GAP, Cython... Do you call the computation of cohomology rings of finite p-groups a real world application?? I'm not trying to be king of the math-nerd-hill here but nerd mode on there is a book Hadamard Matrices and Their Applications by Horadam which shows how the various constructions of Hadamard codes can be unified using group cohomology. Of course Hadamard matrices lead to Hadamard codes, which were used in the Mariner space mission. I call space real world, don't you? :-) /nerd mode off I return you to your regularly scheduled channel. Well, a colleague of mine had cohomology theory of Lie groups in his *applied* math exam (Vordiplom). I never understood how he convinced the people that this is legal... I think my project makes a good use of Sage: - Output of Gap is used as input for the C-programs written by David Green. - Output of the C-programs is input for methods of Cython classes (these classes are resolutions, cochains, chain maps etc). The classes also include a Cython wrapper for C-MeatAxe. - Finding generators and algebraic relations for the cohomology ring involves Gröbner bases computed with Singular. - At some point, i also use LinBox for Gauss algorithm. - Eventually, the output is a graded-commutative quotient ring in Singular. The project works, but definitely it isn't finished yet, there are still many things that ought to be improved. I don't know if William should mention a not-yet-finished project, but i do think it is a nice example of a Sage project. And, by the way, i do think that the main emphasis of the talk should be Sage allows for easy and conceptual programming based on a wide range of high quality math software, so +1 to Roman Pearce. It is good that Sage is free, but at least for me it matters most that it is both easy to use and very powerful. Cheers Simon --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 12:02 AM, Bill Page [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:57 AM, William Stein wrote: Hi, I'm giving a plenary talk at ISSAC in Linz, Austria this summer. I'm supposed to write a 2-page abstract/paper for the proceedings. I just wrote something: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I've been advised by some people on this list to focus on algorithms in Sage and purely technical things, but I've totally ignored that advice and instead written something very social in which I as honestly as possible lay out exactly why Sage exists and try to describe somewhat just what Sage is. I have to submit this in a couple days, but comments are welcome. Hmmm, I have to give it a -1. :-( I don't like it much. But it's your show. ... Thanks for your honest feedbck. I really don't think that you will find many people at this meeting who are interested in open source alternatives to commercial software as such. I guess they will just be bored by my talk and fall asleep. Many of the attendees will have and may still be involved in developing software for the commercial systems. Most are also involved in some form of academic research in computer algebra systems. I don't mean that people wont be interested in hearing about the advantages of open source, but I believe that it would not normally be viewed as their primary motivation or preoccupation. And I think they will probably already have a fairly good idea about why Sage exists. I actually imagine that a lot of them won't have a good idea about why Sage exists. The main reason Sage exists is because exactly those people failed for a very long time to make the tools that I need for my research in number theory, so I had to take matters into my own hands. I suspect they won't see things that way. I think the advice you received from other people on this list to focus on algorithms and technical things was probably pretty good for the intended audience. It seems that usually there are three speakers and they are all technical in a general sense. For example at ISSAC 2006 http://issac2006.dima.unige.it there were three plenary speakers: Christopher Umans Group-Theoretic Algorithms for Matrix Multiplication Hennie Poulisse Computational Communicative Algebra Joachim von zur Gathen Who was Who in polynomial factorization and at ISSAC 2005 http://www.mmrc.iss.ac.cn/issac2005 these five: Stephen M. Watt A Framework for Pen-Based Mathematical Computing Prof. Hai Jin The ChinaGrid and its Impact on e-Science in China Bruno Salvy D-finiteness: Algorithms and Applications Bruno Buchberger A View on the Future of Symbolic Computation Wen-Tsun Wu On a Finite Kernel Theorem for Polynomial-Type Optimization Problems and Some of its Applications (perhaps two here somewhat less technical) and ISSAC 2004 http://www.risc.uni-linz.ac.at/about/conferences/issac2004/invitedtalks.html 1. Numerical Algebraic Geometry and Symbolic Computation by Jan Verschelde 2. Triangulations of Polytopes and Algebraic Geometry by Francisco Santos 3. Sum of Squares of Polynomials and Their Applications by Pablo Parrilo - Talking about what Sage is, however does make sense to me. If you are not inclined to speak specifically about how Sage is used in your own or other people's research, then I certainly will speak about how Sage is used in my research and others during my talk. The abstract I posted is limited to 2 pages, and hence is a lot shorter than my talk. Also Michael Abshoff will speak for about 10 minutes during my talk about the organizational structure of the Sage development process itself (patch review, etc.). why not say something about how Sage actually achieves integration between such a large number of systems? How do you make Maxima results available to Gap and then compute something that you display a fancy 3d graphic etc. What is the importance of Python as the interpreter? What about trade-offs for compiled code in Cython or interfaces to external libraries? How important is the web-based notebook interface? ... Just some different ideas. I know ideas are cheap, but you did ask. :-) I did, and I appreciate your thoughts. I do intend to touch on all the above points in the talk itself. -- William Regards, Bill Page. -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 2:34 AM, Roman Pearce [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Apr 29, 11:57 pm, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm giving a plenary talk at ISSAC in Linz, Austria this summer. I'm supposed to write a 2-page abstract/paper for the proceedings. I just wrote something: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I think what you wrote is a pretty good introduction to what Sage is, but it is a little long on the open source philosophy (which will turn some people off) and it leaves out interesting details. The open source philosophy is the entire reason for the existence of Sage. The audience will be very interested in why Sage might succeed, when previous open source efforts have failed to attract the large audience of general purpose users and developers. I suggest the following (some of which you mentioned): 1) python is an easy and widely used high level language which is particularly well suited for interfacing different programs 2) collecting all the existing open source programs has allowed Sage to quickly reach critical mass, ie: it is very usable right now 3) new and interesting things are being brought into Sage (JMol, user interface improvements, etc) 4) new mathematical algorithms and libraries are being developed for Sage (FLINT, Linear algebra, rapid development with Cython, etc) 5) researchers are using Sage right now (list contributors and areas, and papers if possible) 6) Sage is open source Thanks, this is a great list. I think if you start with the technical merits you can easily win over the audience. These people have heard all kinds of sales pitches, and open source looks like just another crusade. They are all uniformly interested in computing things, and in software they can use for their work. Sage has a very strong case on those grounds, please (I'm begging you) stick to it :) You seem to be anti-open source in your own work, which is what *really* matters to you. It's my understanding that you've written a very interesting library in computer algebra and it is closed source. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression you generally don't see the value in *open source* mathematical software (per se), and are mainly interested in Sage only for the technically interesting successes it has had. BTW, asking for contributors is the surest way to get zero contributors. I'm really glad I didn't listen to you over the last three years. William --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 3:26 AM, David Joyner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I like it but perhaps I am prejudiced:-) IMHO, SAGE would be dead (or at least a very lonely research project) if it weren't for the fact that it is free and open source. Sage would certainly not be dead even if I were the only user -- in fact I was the only person behind Sage for a while.Incidentally, the *Python* community in Boston, MA was in fact very interested in Sage from day 1; that made a big big difference in getting Sage off the ground. But also, design is an important factor. Some ideas (I hesitate to call them suggestions since it seems fine as is): 1. replace notable community by specific growth (as in derivative) numbers. 2. replace interfaces to all exisiting... by something specific like well-designed command-line interface to Python, GAP, ... (You can't say everything in 2 pages but I personally love the tabbed history and completion of the IPython interface and saw it wasn't mentioned.) 3. A specific example could be mentioned which smoothly integrates several systems. As Michael B suggests, a group invariant computation in a number field mixes GAP (for groups), Pari for the number field (is this correct?), and Singular (for the polynomial ring invariant theory computations). I will demo computation and visualization of modular abelian varieties during my talk, and keep the above suggestions in mind. Computing modular abelian varieties brings together numerous components of Sage, and is exactly the functionality I started Sage for. It's fairly technical, but not impossibly so (it's just homology groups of modular curves, which are compact Riemann surfaces, etc.) On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:57 AM, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I'm giving a plenary talk at ISSAC in Linz, Austria this summer. I'm supposed to write a 2-page abstract/paper for the proceedings. I just wrote something: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I've been advised by some people on this list to focus on algorithms in Sage and purely technical things, but I've totally ignored that advice and instead written something very social in which I as honestly as possible lay out exactly why Sage exists and try to describe somewhat just what Sage is. I have to submit this in a couple days, but comments are welcome. -- William -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
You seem to be anti-open source in your own work, which is what *really* matters to you. It's my understanding that you've written a very interesting library in computer algebra and it is closed source. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression you generally don't see the value in *open source* mathematical software (per se), and are mainly interested in Sage only for the technically interesting successes it has had. Even though I'd prefer the mentioned library to be open source, I'm not sure I'd call the policy anti-open source. Fast arithmetic with multivariate polynomials is IMHO for many (not all!) applications mostly useful in the context of a computer algebra system which involves Gröbner bases, higher level algorithms, heuristics etc. Though I am aware that for some applications Roman's library would kick ass in its current form, for some others it will not in that form. On the other hand Roman did write a -- as far as I've skimmed it -- nice paper on the matter detailing his implementation strategy. I lack the experience/knowledge to judge whether the presented performance improvements would make a huge difference for the computation of e.g. Gröbner bases, but he put information out there for others to try. BTW, asking for contributors is the surest way to get zero contributors. I'm really glad I didn't listen to you over the last three years. Hi, I'm slightly puzzled by that reply since it feels rather hostile. If I understood the e-mail correctly then Roman implied that at *this particular meeting* asking for contributors might be perceived as annoying? Thus he shared his opinion to help us to make the Sage presentation more successful. Martin -- name: Martin Albrecht _pgp: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x8EF0DC99 _www: http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~malb _jab: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Dear Martin, dear William, On Apr 30, 4:39 pm, Martin Albrecht [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip If I understood the e-mail correctly then Roman implied that at *this particular meeting* asking for contributors might be perceived as annoying? Thus he shared his opinion to help us to make the Sage presentation more successful. This was my understanding, too. Say Please contribute to Sage - and the people in the audience might think Why should i spend my time to make a project work that i even don't know. Say I invite you to use Sage for your work, as in the following examples - and the people might think Ah, it works and could be a useful thing, so let's try.. They will easily come quite far, at some point they get stuck, find a way to enhance Sage -- and whoops! They become contributors. And for sure this way of attracting new contributors is only possible since Sage is open source. Yours Simon --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 7:39 AM, Martin Albrecht [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You seem to be anti-open source in your own work, which is what *really* matters to you. It's my understanding that you've written a very interesting library in computer algebra and it is closed source. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression you generally don't see the value in *open source* mathematical software (per se), and are mainly interested in Sage only for the technically interesting successes it has had. Even though I'd prefer the mentioned library to be open source, I'm not sure I'd call the policy anti-open source. Fast arithmetic with multivariate polynomials is IMHO for many (not all!) applications mostly useful in the context of a computer algebra system which involves Gröbner bases, higher level algorithms, heuristics etc. Though I am aware that for some applications Roman's library would kick ass in its current form, for some others it will not in that form. On the other hand Roman did write a -- as far as I've skimmed it -- nice paper on the matter detailing his implementation strategy. I lack the experience/knowledge to judge whether the presented performance improvements would make a huge difference for the computation of e.g. Gröbner bases, but he put information out there for others to try. Well I think Roman is a very valuable contributor to computer algebra research, I greatly appreciate his work, and I'm glad he is doing it. And I am personally not in any sense anti-closed source either in certain cases, i.e., I strongly support people or organizations releasing software however they want (e.g., I *really* appreciate VMware, which is a closed source program). It's just that the fact he makes his code closed source right now seems relevant to the advice he is giving in this instance, and I'm hoping he might elaborate on his perspective. Roman -- please don't think I'm trying to be hostile. I would love for you to write more in response, and I value your time. BTW, asking for contributors is the surest way to get zero contributors. I'm really glad I didn't listen to you over the last three years. Hi, I'm slightly puzzled by that reply since it feels rather hostile. If I understood the e-mail correctly then Roman implied that at *this particular meeting* asking for contributors might be perceived as annoying? Thus he shared his opinion to help us to make the Sage presentation more successful. You're right, my reply does sound hostile. Thanks for pointing this out, since it wasn't my intension. There are so many times over the last three years that I've been told something like that, but just decided on instinct (I guess) to ignore it, and instead simply ask people for help, and the result has been very good. I really hope Roman will explain why he strongly feels that my asking for help at ISSAC will *guarantee* no help, but not asking for help will result in help?Since I have never been to ISSAC and he has, I'm at a pretty big disadvantage as far as understanding the audience, to put it mildly. -- william --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 9:53 AM, William Stein wrote: On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 12:02 AM, Bill Page wrote: On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 1:57 AM, William Stein wrote: I'm giving a plenary talk at ISSAC in Linz, Austria this summer. I'm supposed to write a 2-page abstract/paper for the proceedings. I just wrote something: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract.pdf I really don't think that you will find many people at this meeting who are interested in open source alternatives to commercial software as such. I guess they will just be bored by my talk and fall asleep. I certainly hope not! I think the ISSAC community needs Sage very badly - they just don't know it yet. Many of the attendees will have and may still be involved in developing software for the commercial systems. Most are also involved in some form of academic research in computer algebra systems. I don't mean that people wont be interested in hearing about the advantages of open source, but I believe that it would not normally be viewed as their primary motivation or preoccupation. And I think they will probably already have a fairly good idea about why Sage exists. I actually imagine that a lot of them won't have a good idea about why Sage exists. The main reason Sage exists is because exactly those people failed for a very long time to make the tools that I need for my research in number theory, so I had to take matters into my own hands. I suspect they won't see things that way. I agree that they probably do not see it that way. On the other hand I do expect that they see it *exactly* the same way you do: For the most part the things *they* created exist because *they* had need of such tools to do the research that *they* wanted to do and it seemed to them that no one else had created the right tools for the job. (I said seemed because in some cases it might have seemed easier to re-invent what was needed rather than learning enough about what someone else had created.) In other words the reason (most of) those other systems exist is the same as the reason that Sage exists. The arguments for or against proprietary and/or open source models for development came later. Even systems like Axiom were essentially open source when they were first created - all you had to do was show some interest in the work of the developers and ask for their source code. I think the problem was mainly that there really was no infrastructure in place yet (e.g. the web) that would allow the open source model to work. Unless large government research funding was available, the argument that the proprietary commercial/non-profit development model was the best approach was easy to sell - and still appeals to many people. If by presenting Sage ISSAC you succeed in convincing some of these people that open source really is a viable approach today, then I agree that that would be a good thing! ... Talking about what Sage is, however does make sense to me. If you are not inclined to speak specifically about how Sage is used in your own or other people's research, then I certainly will speak about how Sage is used in my research and others during my talk. The abstract I posted is limited to 2 pages, and hence is a lot shorter than my talk. Yes, of course. I think I was a bit mislead by the style of the abstract. Do you think quoting testimonials from other people is such a good idea? On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 10:21 AM, William Stein wrote: On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 3:26 AM, David Joyner wrote: ... 3. A specific example could be mentioned which smoothly integrates several systems. As Michael B suggests, a group invariant computation in a number field mixes GAP (for groups), Pari for the number field (is this correct?), and Singular (for the polynomial ring invariant theory computations). I will demo computation and visualization of modular abelian varieties during my talk, and keep the above suggestions in mind. Computing modular abelian varieties brings together numerous components of Sage, and is exactly the functionality I started Sage for. It's fairly technical, but not impossibly so (it's just homology groups of modular curves, which are compact Riemann surfaces, etc.) I think it is important emphasis in the abstract that your talk will include such examples. Regards, Bill Page. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 8:10 AM, Bill Page [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Bill, Thanks for elaborating and clarifying your thoughts. I've posted a new version of the abstract here: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/tmp/abstract2.pdf You guys might dislike it even more. We'll see :-) William --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
Dear William, in line 3, it should be could, not ncould. IMO, you should mention Cython. In fact, i started to use Sage mainly because Cython made it possible to easily use the C-programs of my boss. Otherwise i would have had tried to do everything in Singular. But i guess you will mention Cython in your talk anyway. Yours Simon --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[sage-devel] Re: ISSAC abstract
On Apr 30, 8:09 am, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The open source philosophy is the entire reason for the existence of Sage. That may be true, but it won't sell. There have been other open source systems before Sage (Axiom, Maxima, ...) and very good specialized systems (Singular, CoCoA). These systems attracted a lot of development effort and made some very respected contributions to the field, however they did not achieve the base of users and developers that Maple, Mathematica, Magma, and Matlab (yes, count them) have. So the first thing the ISSAC audience will ask is what makes Sage different? I tried to suggest some answers to that question. You seem to be anti-open source in your own work, which is what *really* matters to you. It's my understanding that you've written a very interesting library in computer algebra and it is closed source. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression you generally don't see the value in *open source* mathematical software (per se), and are mainly interested in Sage only for the technically interesting successes it has had. Well that is a fair criticism because I haven't contributed any code. Setting aside philosophical arguments, I believe it makes technical sense for the field to adopt a common infrastructure that is open source. Look at the massive benefits we have all received from GMP. It has made every system better. Comparable projects for other low level operations in computer algebra could have a similar, although not as wide, of an impact. Whether you can convince people of this is another issue entirely. By the way, don't worry about offending me, I have been known to offer blunt unsolicited criticisms of others' work :) BTW, asking for contributors is the surest way to get zero contributors. I'm really glad I didn't listen to you over the last three years. To an audience of researchers and professionals it will sound desperate. There is no shortage of peoples' pet projects in this field, and everyone knows that software development is a massive time sink. They are mathematical algorithm researchers remember. I think they will be most interested in technical achievements, and in the unique qualities of Sage that could help them in their work. Feel free to ignore my advice, but I am offering it in good faith. There will be people at ISSAC who write open source math software (Singular, Pari, Maxima, etc), there will be some more people who use it, and there will be many more people whose exposure to open source might be limited to GNU/Linux and GMP. They are all there to talk about symbolic algorithms. That is the audience. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
