rjf wrote: > > I don't know what your experience has been in Sage, but the idea that > many eyes make all bugs shallow may not apply in a case where only one > or two people have the understanding to write or read a program > regardless of how nice the language is.
At the same time, opening up the source code makes it more likely that more people will be able to understand the mathematics behind it, as they will have a concrete, unambiguous description of the algorithm. Also, many bugs are found by people not intimately familiar with the algorithms, but may have extensive experience in code. For example, Michael Abshoff has pointed out many bugs that are memory errors and the like, where he may not have a total and absolutely deep understanding of all the ins and outs of the algorithm. (I say this as an example; I know Michael understands lots and lots of the mathematics too.) Having open-source code allows people that are extremely good at code work together with people that are extremely good at math, so the bug-finding crowd extends beyond the intersection of the two sets (which, at the outset, may in fact just consist of your hypothetical two people). Jason -- Jason Grout --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
