Hi Eric, My comments are also inline
At Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:11:50 -0600, Eric Schulte wrote: > > Hi Darlan, > > Thanks for pointing out this interesting tool. > > my comment are inline below > > Darlan Cavalcante Moreira <darc...@gmail.com> writes: > > > Hello org-users > > > > I have been reading with attention the E-Mails about org-babel here on the > > list > > and decided to play with it a little this weekend. It reminded me about > > another > > great piece of software called "Sage Math" (Some screencasts here -> > > http://www.sagemath.org/help-video.html) that I have tested sometime ago. > > > > "Sage is a free open-source mathematics software system licensed under the > > GPL. It combines the power of many existing open-source packages into a > > common > > Python-based interface." > > > > This is the first I'd heard about sage, after watching the first intro > video it looks like a very relevant tool. > > It seems like the biggest difference between Sage and Org-babel is that > sage wraps all of it's component-languages into a single top level > environment (which is basically python) and somehow puts the > functionality of each language behind an API of function/library calls > (I may be misunderstanding here). Where as babel doesn't provide any > unified top level, but rather evaluates each language in it's own > separate environment and allows it's supported languages to share > results via a lowest-common-denominator of elisp and org-mode constructs > (like tables). > You understood right. Sage tries to integrate the different components in a natural way with this wrapping, but it is also possible to use the components directly as in org-mode by specifying the language with the comment %LANGUAGE at the beginning of the text-area. However, I not sure how sage can exchange information from different languages in this way (there is probably a way). > > > > Although Sage and org-babel are very different, I think that Sage may be a > > good > > source of inspiration for org-babel. Probably the most practical way of > > using > > sage is though the notebook: a front-end that runs inside the browser and > > communicates with the sage server (may be remote or local). > > > > As soon as someone implements an emacs-run browser which can render > org-mode files on demand and supports an elisp REPL we should be very > close to similar functionality in Org-babel. :) > With emacs you never know. Maybe there is an elisp_REPL.el somewhere in the internet. :) > > > > In the sage notebook one creates worksheets. Each worksheet starts with a > > text > > area where you type the code. The main language is python, but others may be > > used if specified with a comment. When the code is evaluated any output is > > shown > > in addition to the last value. Therefore, the code > > > > ,---- > > | print "hello" > > | 10 > > | print "world" > > | 9 > > | 15 > > `---- > > will show > > ,---- > > | hello > > | world > > | 15 > > `---- > > > > This is similar to a "combination" of :results output and :results value in > > org-babel. A really nice feature is that if an image is created by the last > > command in the block it is automatically shown. Therefore, it doesn't matter > > which library was used to generate the plot as long as it creates an image > > (for > > instance, plotting to a file with matplotlib will shown the plot when the > > code > > is evaluated). Maybe the same approach could be used in org-mode. > > > > I'd be interested to see how sage captures images created by it's > sub-languages. It looks to me like sage has tighter coupling with it's > components (perhaps making more requirements of it's sub-languages) than > org-babel. I know that for languages (like R) which support changing > the default graphical output to a file it would be possible (in fact I > believe Dan may already have this implemented to some degree) to > automatically capture any image output and place it in the org-mode > buffer. > > > > > In the text area, RET only creates a new line, Shift+RET evaluates the code > > in > > the text area and creates a new one below the output keeping all the > > variables > > similar to the multiple source blocks within a single session in org-babel. > > > > Two things I find interesting is that you can easily evaluate all blocks in > > the > > worksheet (org-mode already has org-babel-execute-buffer) and if any block > > starts with the comment "%hide" the code is not shown, only its output. I > > think > > that a header argument ":hide" for a source block could be useful. > > > > There have been a couple of people expressing the desire to hide the > body of source-code blocks recently. It seems that there is some need > here which is not met by any of the existing source-block hiding methods > - pressing tab while at the head of the source-code block > - adding #+STARTUP hideblocks to the top of an org-mode file > - saving source-code blocks as library-of-babel functions > > what behavior would you suggest results from a :hide header argument? My suggestion is that if a source block has the :hide header argument it should be closed by default as if the user had pressed tab. The user could then press tab at the "#BEGIN_SRC ..." line to show the content of the block and, maybe, the block could be closed again if the cursor leaves the block. This can be useful for other blocks as well. Let me use the sage as inspiration again. In sage when you put the cursor above the text-area a blue line is showed. If you click on this line a new text-area is created above the current one but the really nice trick is that shift+click creates an HTML text-area (with a tool-bar with bold, italic, centralized buttons, etc). Then you can create a worksheet in sage such as +-----------------------+ | Some HTML text | | describing a problem | | Use jsMath for | | nice equations | | with latex syntax | +-----------------------+ |%hide | | some hidden code that | | generates some output | +-----------------------+ | solution of the | | problem that was | |calculated by the code | +-----------------------+ That is, when you are only interested in the output and not in the code itself you use the %hide comment. I'm not sure what is the best way to handle the :hide argument when exporting. Maybe it is better to use it simple for folding in the org buffer and use another option to control export of the block. For example, a ":noexport" option in addition to ":hide" and a buffer option "don't export hidden bocks" in case the user wants to avoid exporting all blocks with the :hide option. > > > > > That's my two cents. It is really amazing what you can do with org-mode and > > org-babel and I'm not saying in that org-babel should became more similar to > > sage. I only think that getting some inspiration from sage could be nice. > > > > I agree completely, I'm sure that there are lessons to be learned from a > project with such similarities. Now it's just a matter of getting to > know a little bit more about Sage. > > Thanks -- Eric > > > > > Regards, > > > > Darlan > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Emacs-orgmode mailing list > > Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. > > Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org > > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode Regards, Darlan _______________________________________________ Emacs-orgmode mailing list Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
