Re: [Axiom-developer] Bootstrap documentation.

[Martin Rubey]

"Bill Page" <address@hidden> writes:

> > Many of the categories and friends dragged in by Integer do
> > not seem to be of necessity at the lowest level.  So, you
> > could start with just the simple data structure Integer with
> > few operations and extend it as you go.
> 
> But for this to be sucessful for the entire Axiom library
> wouldn't that require that there be no essential mutual
> recursion between source modules? I do not see how extend
> helps in this case. Sure it is possible even to have
> mutual recursion between extensions, not?

At least in Aldor you can have more or less arbitrary mutual dependencies.  We
use that (heavily) in the species project ("aldor-combinat").

However, I don't think that the current Axiom algebra uses it.  In any case,
"extend" would make life a lot easier, although my top priority still is to
make types first class objects and to allow domain constructors like

SPECIES ==> (L: LabelType) -> CombinatorialSpecies L;

Plus(
    F: SPECIES,
    G: SPECIES
)(L: LabelType): CombinatorialSpecies(L) == add {
        Rep == Union(left: F L, right: G L);
        import from Rep;
        <<implementation: Plus>>
}


Martin