On 05 Nov 2007 10:06:09 +0100, Martin Rubey wrote: > Dear Bill, * > > a short answer, since I'm rather busy... >
Busy is good. :-) > > > > Perhaps we could also support some standard versions, e.g. > > > > \begin{axiom}[fricas,1.1] > > ... > > \end{axiom} > > > > Here [...] is an optional parameter. {axiom} by itself would refer to > > one of the three versions of axiom (no guarantee which one). > > {axiom}[open-axiom] would refer to the most recently installed > > version of open-axiom, etc. > > great! > Ok, but it will take me some time to get around to implementing this. > > The problem with the usual "cut-and-paste" method is that I have not > > found any way to transfer the status and classification field information. > > Only the text content of the page is visible. Of course it would be > > possible to set the fields later, but we are talking about nearly 300 > > pages. > > I think that would not be too bad, since status is already slightly outdated > for some bugs and some flavours of axiom, and the classification scheme > could maybe be simplified. I think that is true. The trouble of course is that we apparently do not have anyone with enough time and interest to actually do the checking of the status and copying of the details. > > > An alternative that I haven't checked is using "External Edit". I do > > not have the external edit feature enabled on my workstation so I > > cannot easily check. Martin, I think you do use this right? > > Not anymore, sorry. > > Apart from that, I strongly support Waldek's view of making a more > or less identical copy first, and polish later - time and interest > permitting. > I would have made an identical copy if it had been easy and did not conflict with the desire to upgrade the software. I considered that the software upgrade had to have priority because the newer version of ZWiki is much more spam-resistant than the old one, plus now that we are up-to-date with a standard version of ZWiki without any serious customization, it will be easily remain current. I still have not heard any convincing reason from either you or Waldek why you think copy the entire contents of the old site is important. As for "polishing later", given the past history of this web site and the number and kind of past contributions I am quite certain that later would equate with never in this case. :-( It seems that no one has either the time or the interest even to copy a few selected pages. Given that almost all of the visitors to the site are there only to read about Axiom, I think the quality of the pages is of much greater importance than the quantity. Also although I would not want to presume on how he should spend his time on Axiom, I think it would be a serious waste of Waldek's time to hack together a Perl script just to do a dumb-and-blind copy of the old contents to the new. Since the entire application is written in Python, if any new code was to be written for this purpuse it would make better sense to actually use Python. Further, there already is a very good program (ZSyncer) whose sole purpose is to make it easy to keep two or more websites in synchronized by copying pages in both directions as needed. (We used this program to keep the axiom.risc site synchronized with the axiom-developer site before the computer at Risc had to be re-built.) Unfortunately this program is not capable of dealing with the change in the page type metadata between the old and new ZWiki versions. *If* I was motivated to try to copying everything from the old to new sites, then I would probably devote the effort to solving this problem by modifying ZSyncer. > Also, I would very much like to see the old wiki read only meanwhile. > I'll make this change now, but of course the rate of change of the site is very very low in any case. > I won't have any time for serious axiom stuff for a while. And even then, > I'd prefer to work on the species project. But the wiki cannot wait for such > a long time, it is used by too many people! > I guess that is a problem. I also do not have enough time and would now prefer to use the time I do have available for Axiom actually using Axiom for my research. We badly need someone new to come along who has some interested in the web sites. > A final suggestion: would it be possible to map > > http://axiom-wiki.newsynthesis.org > > to > > http://axiom.newsynthesis.org > > I need short names for the next axiom workshop :-) > The url http://axiom.newsynthesis.org already exists and points to a provisional site-summary page with links to both axiom-wiki and axiom-portal as well as the main pages for the forks of Axiom. Rather than making 'axiom.newsythesis.org' point to the same place as 'axiom-wiki' I would be happy for suggestions on how to improve this page. About the next axiom workshop: Is there anything planned to coincide with the upcoming ISSAC meeting (July 2008?) at Risc? At the last Aldor workshop there were some tentative plans to schedule the next Aldor workshop to occur at this time and place. I will be coming to this meeting if at all possible, so perhaps we will finally meet in person. :-) Regards, Bill Page. _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list Axiom-developer@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer