Re: [Axiom-developer] RE: User interface,TeXmacs and Axiom

[C Y]

--- Ralf Hemmecke <address@hidden> wrote:

> > Axiom, in its current state, is much more for programmers and
> > developers than for end users.  An Emacs inteface which helps those
> > people seems like a logical step at this time.
> 
> Hmmm, at first I thought you are right. But what does it mean to
> have an axiom interface for developers? If you develop a package you
> write some Aldor (instead of SPAD) code. The only thing you would
> need is a support to load your package into axiom. But that is
> nothing. If you work with Axiom you are a user.

True, in a way.  I guess I was thinking "working for the sake of
creating a good CAS" vs. "working to use the CAS to solve other
problems".  That's still fuzzy though - for mathematical research work
they might be the same thing!

Anyway, Emacs seems a popular tool for the "working for the sake of a a
better CAS" crowd (which is what we are at this time).

> > An "official" GUI, of sufficient quality to be worthy of the
> > Axiom project, is EXTREMELY non-trivial.
> 
> That should become part of the WishList and after a while it should 
> develop into a project description where somebody could start to work
> on it.

Right.

> Well, one thing I would start with is a description of what features
> we  would like that GUI to have. The implementation or what
> tools/languages is then used to implement it is a completely
> different issue. And maybe after we have a proper problem
description, 
> we should contact open source developers that are knowledgable in GUI
> building in order to implement our whishes. I think, just saying "we
> need a 'nice' GUI" is not enough. We could talk forever.

True.  OK, if we want to be more specific, a while back I outlined a
few ideas for a CAS GUI here, and a couple more were added: 

http://maxima.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/CY%27s%20conceptual%20stuff

(was thinking Maxima, but works for any CAS)

I have some of that stuffed into my portal site somewhere - I should
spruce it up and put it in the WIKI.  Obviously those are just a few
drops in an ocean, but it's something.

> It seems that you are one of the people with much interest in GUI.
> Start a Wiki and try to collect opinions, wishes, ideas, links to
> relevant papers. That all should finally become a problem
description.

Sounds like a plan.  I'll see what I can do.  I have a couple papers on
plotting issues and techniques, besides the GUI design thesis - I think
there might be a bib file out there somewhere we could use as a
reference too.  I'll need to dig that out of my archives.

Pity there are no academic programs where this kind of thing could get
funded.  (In the US anyway.)

> Yes, we need something like that also for other subprojects.
> 
> Kai Kaminski made a kind of project description on the wiki before he
> started.
> 
> http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/AxiomUI
> 
> We should have this for any subproject, together with a list of all 
> these subprojects.

How many are there?  GUI, maybe the units stuff once I get it out of
hibernation, web based interfaces, JET code for differential equations,
others?

> > Also, before we do a GUI we would probably need to bring B-natural
>  > or something like it to maturity.
> 
> Well, I think a prerequisite of this is that Aldor gets support for 
> reflections. And a prerequisite of that is that the aldor compiler 
> becomes open source or at least that there is a developer at
> aldor.org who implements reflections.

Right.  Still, I suppose that need not stop the collection of ideas.

Cheers,
CY

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