Took me awhile to respond. Distractions. Last generated a few responses, replying to all under a new subject line (last thread was getting clogged), in no particular order,
> David Joyner: > Thanks for the cool gif! > It would be great f you could post it to > http://wiki.sagemath.org/pics > (or it you tell me what to post, I will for you). Futzed around, logged in, but couldn't figure it how to post it. Attached. It's easy to modify the original source code at < https://www.sagenb.org/home/pub/1687/ > & juggle constant to make various relations. Thanks if you can post this, or tell me how! > mabshoff: > We want to channel traffic into two mailing lists: sage-support for > everything that isn't an developer issue and sage-devel for developers > issue. Many issues on sage-newbie didn't get the attention they needed > because too few people were reading it. Your chances to get replies > are much better on sage-support. I thought "sage newbie" no longer existed. Do correct me & all else if I am confused. > Jason Grout: > This is great stuff! I think it's a perfect place to post it. > > We really ought to set up a library of wonderfully documented examples > of how to use Sage, something like the Maple application center or the > Mathematica Demonstrations project. The current list of notebooks Thanks. Glancing at the published notebooks, many are quickie solutions (and not documented at all -- no top documentation saying "This program differentiates polynomials; we use this logic ..." shuts off my brain) to narrowly-focussed problems not of much interest to, say a high school / college student wanting to know, "What's this SAGE thing about? What's in it for *me*?" Might be good to have separate sets of examples for varied grade levels. Most college kids are concerned about learning differentiation & integration, solving DE's, systems, engineering/science problems, -- not learning what a parabola is (though I've taught a few ...). Just an idea. > Dean, you mentioned the frustration of trying to learn a new system. > Was there anything that we could have done to make it easier (sorry > about the unanswered posts to sage-newbie; we all kind of dropped the > ball with keeping up with so many different mailing lists). There's always that learning curve, shaking a fist at the computer, then the "Aha!" moments. Wish I had a good answer. Lots of good WELL-DOCUMENTED examples? Then I can browse published worksheets, "Oh, this person did this thing at least related to what I'm looking at?" And maybe a place to post those *** well-documented examples *** for review, "Here's a nifty workbook I did that illustrates the manifold uses of spendiferous functions," or maybe more importantly, "This worksheet illustrates how to use SAGE to do this not-easy-to-code thing?" (whatever), and someone reviews it, "Yes, darn it, that is solid; let's post it for all under a name that makes sense" (another problem with the published worksheets). Elsewhere observed, > ... it is not organized or searchable (I don't think) ... This needs work. Having played with SAGE a bit, I see it trying to go from being a garage band to Led Zeppelin (well, that's overstating a bit), and sometimes the old ideas need revamped. > Dean, I guess I should add that just last year, I was a newbie sage user > as well. I felt how much people welcomed newcomers and cared about > helping people get up to speed ... You guys / gals / whoever were pretty cool. When questions went unanswered I kind of figured, "Oh, we all live busy lives." I had the impression that others wanted quickie answers -- those happen, but don't count on them often. Can't one set a "welcome message" to all new users of a group to make policies clear? Would love to do some development of whatever, examples, documentation, wherever, a worthwhile contribution, and doubtless I'm not alone. Some things could perhaps be more clear, "We need more good functionality in this small subset of calculus," "The spendiferous functions code is poorly documented, full of magic numbers & obscure logic & needs cleaned up" (whatever). Dean --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@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-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
