On Sep 17, 8:00 am, Nathann Cohen <nathann.co...@gmail.com> wrote: > Could it be good for sage to.... I do not know, perhaps become some kind of > library of published algorithms ? Should we be thinking about ways to let > used find "the algorithm described in paper XXX for journal XXX number XX > pages XX-XX" ?
More than just a library of implementations of algorithms, I like the idea of Sage as a repository of mathematical knowledge. For example, docstrings can contain citations to articles or monographs. Sometimes doctests can be based on theorems - create some object randomly, then test if two seemingly unrelated computations are equal, as guaranteed according to a theorem. Having two algorithms implemented for something, and then a discussion of cases when one is superior, or even hard-coding the choice is another piece of knowledge embedded in Sage. Having docstrings close to the code, being open source, and making docstrings and source code so easy to access, makes it easy to explain, accumulate and organize a wealth of mathematical knowledge as a side-effect, and I think this is another big advantage to an open source approach to this class of software. I know I've learned lots of mathematics that is new to me since becoming involved, and in my contributions I've tried when possible to reflect the above philosophy. Rob --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
