On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 11:31 PM, David Roe <r...@math.harvard.edu> wrote: >> As for why your viewpoint might be harmful: I have heard anecdotes of >> people >> not wanting to release their code because it was ugly, or nonstandard, or >> difficult to use, etc. As long as the response that they are going to >> receive >> it along the lines of the above, that viewpoint is valid, even if the >> response >> should be "Yes, this is ugly, but it is still awesome." >> >> Large (most?) parts of Sage have simply come from third-party code written >> by people who never had any intention of having anything to do with Sage. >> Such people should be encouraged to release their code, not called idiots >> when they do release it. > > > +1
+1 I was having the exact same thoughts when reading this thread, and this is not the first time. Sometimes it feels like I'm in a math lecture and someone is complaining that it's no good because of the poor penmanship. "Sheesh, he can't even properly cross his T's, and will you look at that punctuation..." Perhaps that's a bit extreem, but you get the point. It's not that there's not room for improvement (there often is plenty), but that's not the primary consideration, if it's a consideration at all for the original author. Even for those that intend to write good code (which is most of the people I know), experience, ignorance, or other constraints get in the way. For someone who's profession is coding, a higher standard is more reasonable, but I think we'd be waiting around a long time before anyone wrote ratpoints if we wait for the "professionals." More mathematicians know (a little) how to code than programmers know (a little) algebraic geometry, and they have a lot to contribute. - Robert -- 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
