Sage-devel was so nice for the last few months with out Richard Fateman FUD... On Nov 25, 2011 8:13 AM, "rjf" <fate...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > re: writing stubs to access C (etc) libraries from Lisp. > > There are several lisp programs which will take your *.h files and > attempt to > automatically write all the stubs. This cannot be entirely automated > but > my limited experience with this suggests it can be quite successful. > I've linked to libraries (GMP, I think) that were in some python > format, years ago. > > My own timings are on a different lisp, different compiler > optimizations, > different computer. The range of speed-ups in compiling Maxima could > conceivably from 0 (i.e. not faster at all... maybe even slower...) to > huge - 1000X . > > Based on absolutely no statistical evidence, my guess is that the vast > majority of > users of Sage use it as a front end to Maxima, or things which could > easily be done > in Maxima but might also be done in the Pythonish Sage front end > language/ system itself. > > I further guess there is not really a competition between Sage and the > commercial Ma*. > Rather, competition for mind-space between (A) users who simply > download Maxima from > sourceforge and use it, possibly contributing to it, > and (B) users who download Sage, are told how great python is, and > then end up using Sage as a front-end to Maxima, but through an > apparently poor pexpect > interface. I think it is less likely that such B) users will > understand or make use > of the tools that might be available in Maxima, and much less likely > that these users will > contribute to the tools in Maxima, which can most easily be > accomplished by writing in the Maxima language > or in Common Lisp. Not Python. > > It would be simple for William to say, occasionally, that Maxima is > written in Common Lisp and it is possible to incrementally improve the > Maxima component efficiently by writing in Lisp. People do it all the > time. > > Instead we see the occasional proposal which looks like "Let's > encourage some high school student to rewrite the X facility of Maxima > in Python this summer. It's bound to be much faster and better, > especially since we can compile parts of it via Cython. And since > Python is so easy to learn." > > The idea that what is difficult about (say) the symbolic definite > integration program in Maxima is that it was written in Lisp rather > than Python is, to me, a symptom of very shallow analysis of the > situation. > > But we have wandered off the track of the subject line. > > RJF > > > > > -- > To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to > sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel > URL: http://www.sagemath.org > -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
