Re: [Axiom-developer] Learning Axiom (Literate programming, LaTeX etc)

[Martin Rubey]

"Bill Page" <address@hidden> writes:

> Some of the internal design of MuPad was influenced directly by Axiom,
> specifically it's concept of domains (types) and categories.

"influenced" should be replaced by "copied".

> > This impression is not lessened by reading that Axiom aims to be the "best"
> > CAS in terms of its algorithms and implementation.  This seems to imply
> > that plonkers like me, who are happy if a program just works, should keep
> > away from trying to write code in Axiom.

Definitively *not*!  Everybody with some math knowledge can contribute to
axiom.  And writing code in Axiom occurs in several layers:

Tutorials

  HyperDoc has the concept of "examples" for a group of packages or domains.
  Unfortunately, this is not done currently for all of them.  You can get a
  list of domains for which Tutorials exist by clicking on Examples and then
  Domains in HyperDoc.  You can get a list of all domains by clicking on Browse
  and then Domains. (without typing anything into the field).

  Examples per operation should be added to the docstrings of the individual
  operations.

  Currently only a tiny subset of LaTeX works, but as I have shown on
  SandBoxHyperDocReplacement, prospects are very good for having a HyperDoc
  replacement soon.


Documentation

  most of Axioms code is only very lightly documented, if at all.  It could be
  very useful, if well done, if you would start with catdef.spad.pamphlet and
  attreg.spad.pamphlet.  Only general mathematical knowledge is needed here,
  but I'm sure (in fact, I know) that you would discover some bugs and
  inconsistencies.

Design of categories 

  note that the concept of Category in Axiom has very little to do with
  mathematical category theory, rather, it is similar to a class in object
  oriented paradigm.

  To play this game, it is helpful to have a broad understanding of some
  mathematical domain.  My favorite project is to design (or in fact, write
  down) some categories capturing the hierarchies of solutions of recurrences
  and differential equations.  Another one would be the world of factoring,
  some number theory knowledge is needed here.  Yet another one, very pressing
  in fact, is to think about which categories support definite summation and
  products.

Implementation of domains and packages

  Code in the usual sense.  See the WishList for what's missing.  I do not know
  enough about your interests to give advice here.


> There also doesn't seem to be a repository of programs developed by other
> users, a "share" directory, if you like, both for seeing examples of Axiom
> programs, and also to see what's also been developed.

Take the union of Gabriel dos Reis' and Bill Page's answers:

the "share" directory is src/algebra

and the stuff in AxiomContributions some day might be integrated into
src/algebra.  For example, my guessing package moved already.

Martin