On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 12:28 PM, Sergiu Ivanov <[email protected]> wrote: > > https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8pXy4LH0sF0SjNtNlRiRzlRZ1dkQjdfR3N2ZlVKdw/edit
Right now the interface looks a lot more like SymPy Quick Reference than SymPy Quick Guide: the user can choose any module, see the documentation of any function of that module, and also test it a little bit. However, I am not yet sure this is much better than http://docs.sympy.org/dev/modules/ . Of course, the new interface makes it possible to read the documentation *and* test the functions at the same time; what I'm not really enthusiastic about is the fact that the interface rigidly fixes the use of a function. Considering the abs() function, the user wouldn't be able to test what 3*abs(-1) would be. While this is not really relevant for abs(), this may be a show stopper for other functions. Moreover, this makes it hard to work with methods: how do you plan to make it possible to test something like this: exp(x).series()? Also, as I said, I think it would be very nice to have something guide-like. A couple years ago, the software for the J programming language provided a nice getting-started practical guide. It consisted of a series of lessons, which you could take sequentially. The application would show the user a description of some feature and then allow them to play around with it until they felt comfortable with it and were ready to go to the next lesson. These lessons were, however, executed within a text-based environment. I believe, you could make use of the benefits of a graphical user interface. On the other hand, in a guide-like environment, you could mimic the behaviour of gamma.sympy.org ( http://gamma.sympy.org/input/?i=integrate%28sin%28x%29%29 ) or Wolfram Alpha ( http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=integrate%28sin%28x%29%29 ). However, besides showing additional information about the input, you may also show *how* the user could obtain that additional information. In case you find this direction worth exploring, you may consider starting from the already existing gamma.sympy.org and live.sympy.org interfaces and extend them with the new features. I believe this is going to be among the most time-efficient approaches. Sergiu -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sympy?hl=en.
