On 25 February 2011 21:36, Ira Baxter <idbax...@semdesigns.com> wrote:
>> > > Here are my suggestions: >> >> > > 1. The guy is lying. He doesn't really have a Mathematica parser that >> > > works. > > It is clear that Fateman with no evidence insulted our ability to > parse Mathematica, > as well as our character. It should be clear that we can parse it > just fine. > You can decide about our character. > > Mr. Fateman does not apparantly understand what we do with our > tools, or how they work. Given the way this conversation started, > and the way he is continuing, > I see no good reason why I should explain any of this to him. > > -- IDB I think Richard Fateman was probably born spiteful and did a degree in spitefulness[1]. Although Richard has never tried Sage, he sometimes does have some useful contributions to the sage-devel list, even though that might be hard for you to believe given his attitude towards you and your company. I do agree with Richard that getting the input to FullForm[] is useful. The format of your output is hard to understand, but I've not taken the time to read your web site in great detail. I still don't understand all the issues around parsing Mathematica, but you have given me good reason to believe some of Richard's comments on this topic may be inaccurate. I did have a look at Fateman's Lisp code, but there is no README file explaining how to use it. This is despite Richard's paper "Software Fault Prevention by Language Choice: Why C is Not My Favorite Language" http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/papers/software.pdf saying "The program should be written so that it that can be modified, extended, or re-used in the future by the original author or others." To most people, including a README file with the source code would help in this matter. I tried to use Richard's code with the ECL Lisp interpreter but that failed. I was then told the Allegro Lisp interpreter would work, which I've not tried as that is a commercial product and I don't have it. Do you think lex and yacc could be suitably employed for the task? These are quite nice in that they are included in most operating systems (there are versions for Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX ... etc etc). If I recall correctly, Richard stated they would not be suitable, but I don't trust his judgment on this issue. Despite the impression you might get, the sage-devel list is usually quite well behaved and professional. Of course we get conflicts some times (I've had a few with people myself), but generally there is respect for each others opinions. Dave [1] Adapted from a comment made by someone in the procurement department at University College London about his colleague who administered the Mathematica site license. "He was born awkward and did a degree in awkwardness" -- 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
