Re: [Axiom-developer] GSoC CAS-neutral test suite project

[Ted Kosan]

Tim wrote:

> <...>
> In addition, we could poll the NMC for students. There are people in
> the consortium with wide-ranging contacts, like Inria, Maplesoft,
> National Instruments, etc.
>
> <...>
>
> Or contact William Kahan about numerical library standards (e.g. BLAS?
> ATLAS?)
> that might need standards. Richard Fateman is also a good contact as he is
> one of the Maxima authors and well versed in things like floating point
> formats.
> Stephen Watt is also another source of potential standards. James Davenport
> is a lead on the OpenMath standards committee and could suggest potential
> cross-platform standards.

I talked with the GeoGebra developers and they very much liked the
idea of having one of their alloted GSoC student positions used for
working on a system independent CAS test suite (which MathPiper could
also use).  They were grateful that you agreed to participate in this
project as a mentor because of the exceptional amount of CAS
development experience you have.  GeoGebra has well over 100,000 users
and their website has around half a million visitors a month.
Therefore, they understand that a significant number of users will
benefit from this CAS test suite work. (As a side note, in the past
the GeoGebra developers have indicated that at some point in time they
will probably be interested in making a more capable open source CAS
than MathPiper available to their advanced users and I think Axiom
would be a good candidate for this).


Here is a link to the GeoGebra GSoC project idea page (the CAS test
suite project is listed at the bottom):

http://www.geogebra.org/trac/wiki/Gsoc2010


Here is a link to the GSoC website (which contains all of the
information about the GSoC program):

http://code.google.com/soc/


and here is a link to advice for mentors:

http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code/wiki/AdviceforMentors


If you are still interested in being an official mentor for this
project, let me know and I will send you instructions which describe
how to apply as a mentor.


Here is the GSoC timeline:

http://socghop.appspot.com/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2010/timeline


Since the addition of this CAS test suite project to the GeoGebra
project list was a last-minute occurrence, we are on a tight schedule
for locating potential students and inviting other potential mentors
and/or advisors to participate.  The student application period begins
March 9th and ends April 9th and so we do not have very much time to
locate potential students.  The student stipend for this project is
$5000.  Google defines a student as "an individual enrolled in or
accepted into an accredited institution including (but not necessarily
limited to) colleges, universities, masters programs, PhD programs and
undergraduate programs."


Since I do not have very much experience in CAS test suite
development, what I would like to see happen is for you to take the
technical lead position in this project and for me to serve as your
assistant.  Here are the kind of tasks I see myself doing in this
project:

- Handle most of the GSoC paperwork.
- Act as a coordinator for other CAS projects which may want to
participate in this project.
- Maintain a project website.
- Help with developing the code which will be needed to communicate
with a wide range of computer algebra systems.
- etc.



Here are some project areas I see you being responsible for:

- Determining the requirements and scope of the project.
- Using your contacts in the CAS community to locate potential
students for this project.
- Using your contacts in the CAS community to locate people who may be
interested in participating in this project as a mentor or an advisor.
- Identifying other CAS projects that may be interested in
participating in this project that I can contact.



Anyway, these are my current thoughts on the project.  Feel free to
modify them as you see fit.

Ted