On Nov 25, 2011 10:18 AM, "rjf" <fate...@gmail.com> wrote: > > We could always continue this discussion on sage-flame.
Please do. This thread should be about Mathematica and the extent to which their claim to have a compiler for arbitrary Mathematica programs is actually true. William > I think that persons who wish to use this functionality in Maxima > could > consider that maybe they should just use Maxima. > > Exposing this functionality better from the Sage top > level may be possible, but not something that I am interested in > doing. > > I think the examples are pretty evident. > > You can take any Maxima program f > and compile it by issuing the command compile(f). > > If you wish to impose assumptions on the types of variables, you can > read about mode_declare. This is optional. > > Perhaps I should point out that I am not opposed to linking together > software written originally for different purposes, maybe in different > languages. > Maxima uses quadpack, linpack, gplot, ... Some of the earliest > projects for VAX Macsyma (circa 1979) at Berkeley were to use > Macsyma as a front end to MINPACK, and also allow it to exchange > data and send commands to MATLAB. > (In 1979 Matlab was (a) free. (b) written in Fortran). > > I have personally > written, or supervised students writing, code linking Lisp/Maxima with > Excel, .NET, GMP, MPFR, net servers etc. Even within Macsyma/Maxima > there > is a proliferation of special packages for achieving higher levels of > efficiency for subclasses (e.g. polynomials over the integers, Taylor > series, > Poisson series). > > > I am also not opposed to free software. (Though I do not whole- > heartedly > endorse GPL as a way to achieve that). > > I am also not opposed to people learning Python. > > To the extent that Sage does "symbolic mathematical computation" in > the tradition > of (say) the ACM SIGSAM special interest group, > it should be possible to be more accurate and complete in portraying > what it > does and how it does it. > > Maybe I'm old-fashioned. > I find statements like "Mathematica is the world's ultimate > application for computations..." > http://www.wolfram.com/products/ to be excusable only because it is > written by a marketeer. > > > Claims for Sage are more modest, but not so much. I am leery of using > the word "ideal" [except in > abstract algebra] to describe a program I wrote, but as I said, maybe > I'm old-fashioned. > > "Many aspects of Sage make it an ideal tool for teaching mathematics," > > "For many mathematicians and students, Sage is today the mature, > open source, and free foundation on which they can build their > research > program." Sage is AWESOME!!!! > > both quotes from focm11.pdf > > RJF > > > RJF > > > > > > On Nov 25, 8:27 am, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: > > 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 -- 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
