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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
