Re: [Axiom-developer] Why did Axiom fail in the 1990s?

[Alasdair McAndrew]

Although I am a beginner myself, I agree that documentation is vital, as well as classroom presence.  I intend to trial Axiom in the current semester with a cryptography class, but I feel that at the moment Axiom is severely hampered by lacking a native windows version - with full documentation (HyperDoc or equivalent) and graphics - and the classy sort of interface common to Maple,Mathematica, and MuPAD.  TeXmacs is only a stop-gap measure towards this end, I think.  (I use Axiom in Emacs under linux, using Martin's 
axiom.el.)

I think that an introduction to Axiom in book form would be very welcome.  It would have two consequences: it would advertise Axiom, and it would show Axiom to be serious and useful software, rather than just a hobby for a few developers.  I have had a little experience in book writing:

http://www.course.com/catalog/product.cfm?isbn=978-0-534-40011-8&CFID=33031138&CFTOKEN=54332257

and if a book project did get underway, I would be be happy to be involved.  Would O'Reilly, or Springer, be interested, do you think?

cheers,
Alasdair

On 7/2/07, address@hidden <address@hidden> wrote:

> My emphasis was to have more *USERS* ...

Axiom has an astonishing number of downloads, given its advertising
budget. And it never ceases to amaze me how many people seem to know
about it. I was recognized in a random bookstore in philadelphia by
two japanese people who use Axiom. I was astonished, to say the least.
I know of no way to measure the number of users.

If we get code/documentation then I'd call them developers.

However, good documentation is clearly vital. Mathematica has dozens
of "for dummy"-level books available and many that have the classroom
as a target. Documentation at all levels is the only way I believe
that Axiom can live.

Tim





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