On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 11:13 AM, mabshoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Apr 30, 7:43 pm, "David Joyner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 2:35 PM, root <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > > > > (disclaimer: I'm the person who set up the Magnus sourceforge site > > > and I worked for Gilbert Baumslag at City College) > > Once I saw Magnus mentioned I figured Tim would be the person to clue > us in. > > > > > I know that there is an existing Python wrapper around Magnus. > > Yes, and last time I looked at Magnus I also got the impression that > from a technical standpoint everything should work well with Sage. One > thing I saw that nobody seems to work actively on it at the moment.
Wasn't Magnus Tim Daly's main example of a project in trouble development and usage-wise? From this thread: http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/c65e235f83cb2cd1/93b5dc531e50bb1c?lnk=gst&q=magnus#93b5dc531e50bb1c Tim wrote: "the only person who can properly maintain, modify, and extend the code will no longer be available and the code will be frozen in time. My Magnus infinite group theory project has this problem. New people coming onto the project cannot find the literature that corresponds to the actual code because it does not exist. Most published results are 5 page conference papers that just hint at the non-core, but vitally important, details if they mention them at all. This problem has 2 parts, both of which stem from the lack of focus on the new discipline of computational mathematics. Part 1 is that journals and conferences only want short papers, which are adequate for math, not the complete implementation. Part 2 is that there is no place to describe the actual code-level optimizations that make the implementation practical and fast. " > Another thing I noticed was that some of the hooks into other CAS > systems seemed incomplete/unfinished. It would be interesting to see > how much functionality is in the "core" library and how much more > Magnus can do when combined with other systems. > > Compile time wasn't short, but no one from the Sage world [at least > not me] has made any attempt to get this down by building only the > essential bits. > > > > Can you email the tarball or give me the url where it is posted? > > Also, can you define "around Magnus" more precisely? One one > > end of the spectrum, the full functionality of Magnus can be accessed > > via Python commands. On the other end, there exists one function which > > can be accessed from a Python command. > > > > > > > > > I know that Magnus has a large number of C++ routines for group > > > theory that exist nowhere else. > > > > > I know that Magnus can be used without the frontend (we used it > > > as a password mechanism for logging into linux using groups theory). > > > > I'm wonderirng how much of the backend is accessible. Gilbert gave me the > > impression that it would be very difficult to integrate Magnus into SAGE. > > (We discussed this issue specifically in person about a month ago.) Of > > course, my impression could be mistaken. > > > > Well, it would be nice if upstream had an interest to cooperate with > Sage. Otherwise I would see little benefit from working on Magnus. > > > > > I know that Magnus is designed to run procedures in parallel. > > > (not algorithms since they may not terminate; in general, > > > there are very few algorithms for this kind of work) > > > Using the procedures in parallel enable you to try various > > > approaches until one succeeds and then poison the others. > > > > > I know that Magnus is GPL. > > > > > I know that there are a large number of people who have collaborated > > > with Gilbert Baumslag over the years. Gilbert is definitely in the > > > superstar category (distinguished prof, 7 books, 150 papers, etc). > > > > Agreed. So is Myasnikov, IMHO. > > Yeah, as other people already mentioned: Tarski! > > I have heard Myasnikov speak a bunch of times in Dortmund a couple > time and I cannot but be very impressed. > > > > > > Tim Daly > > Cheers, > > Michael > > > > > -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
