[Axiom-developer] RE: mathaction

[Martin Rubey]

Bill Page writes:
 > Martin,
 > 
 > I think the new content of
 > 
 >   http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/MathAction
 > 
 > is "lookin' good". Thanks for all your work.

I'm flattered :-) 


 > On Friday, September 10, 2004 1:47 PM you wrote:
 > 
 > > ...
 > > One new request: please remove all subpages of SandBox.
 > > It seems that I do not have permission to do so.

To make it short: it's OK, leave permissions that way. The only reason to
delete a page is that the navigator doesn't look too good with all the old
links around. I simply removed the content of the "disturbing" pages. I believe
that I moved all the "good" content to the new pages, if something is lost, we
can dig it up from the diffs anyway.

 > Continuing to exchange emails such as this is a good way for me
 > to write some of this down and I will do my best to move these
 > sort of design and documentation issues on to MathAction itself.
 > Which brings up another issue that concerns me a little - the
 > use of email and the email lists versus the "subscribe" option
 > on MathAction and Plone. Greater integration is possible but is
 > it really desirable?

I like it the way it is. It might happen anyway that parts of the discussions
on axiom-developer, axiom-mail and axiom-math move to mathaction. I wouldn't
force that. First priority should be the integration of pamphlets, I believe.
  
 > Ok, back the issues at hand...
 > 
 > > I think we should now ask for permission to let
 > > 
 > > http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/mathaction/FrontPage
 > >
 > > replace
 > >
 > > http://www.nongnu.org/axiom/
 > >
 > 
 > Do you mean the "homepage" link on Savannah? Since I have admin
 > rights for Axiom there, perhaps I can make this change? 

Yes.

 > > Most of the content is already in MathAction, I think that only
 > > obsolete things are missing, like the tutorial, which can be
 > > accessed only every second day, if at all.
 > 
 > I don't understand what you mean. Which tutorial? What problems
 > do you have accessing it?

The tutorial of Martin N. Dunstan. I had a bad link, I'll add it just below the
book.

 > > Also, I did not move the screenshots. I think that the only one
 > > which is still interesting is the one with TeXmacs, which would
 > > fit well into a section "Axiom IDE's". I'm using (Gnu) Emacs...
 > >
 > I like the idea of including some helpful information for stand
 > alone "Axiom Integrated Development Environments" like TeXmacs
 > users and Gnu Emacs, and I suppose also just the old native
 > interface. 

Well, maybe somebody reading this will volunteer... It's priority level "2" for
me. 

 > Tim and I (see 'doyen' on MathAction) have also been talking
 > about the possibility of setting up a single-user MathAction-
 > like environment for Axiom. The idea would be to allow an easy
 > transition from a private stand alone environment to and online
 > collaborative one like MathAction. For example, moving from TeXmacs
 > to MathAction could be quite traumatic for a user. In principle
 > making MathAction into a stripped down stand alone single user
 > environment is quite easy to do, but I just haven't had enough
 > time yet to do any serious work on this.

Low priority for me.

 > > I think it should really *replace* the old homepage. I think we
 > > should concentrate on *one* page, and I think that the MathAction
 > > wiki is the perfect tool for it.
 > 
 > The pages on http://www.nongnu.org/axiom/ were originally
 > developed by David Mentre (and/or a colleague of his). I think they
 > established a "nice look" for Axiom - one that I wasn't really
 > able to reproduce in the wiki environment. 

This is very true, they are *very* beautiful! In fact, I tried to imitate a
little bit, but I failed. However, I have such a strong affection to the
underlying system of mathaction, that I propose to make this move. Furthermore,
I hope that beauty will evolve, given some time. In fact, I think that the new
FrontPage is still too crowded, but I didn't want to spend more time on it
right now. http://www.nongnu.org/axiom/ is very concise (in the sense of
"uebersichtlich"), I hope FrontPage will become more like this when the layout
of the wiki becomes clearer.

 > David (more or less) suggested
 > a few days ago that we do the same thing that you are suggesting
 > now - consolidate what we have now into a single "reference site"
 > for Axiom. But I would be happy if he first had a chance to review
 > the contents of your new pages to make sure that nothing of the
 > original intent gets lost before we complete this.

Yes. No need to hurry. I think a great point to switch would be when the
pamphlets are integrated. 

 > I am also a little concerned about how we can (or if we should)
 > separate the purpose of MathAction itself, as a particular type
 > of interface to Axiom and Reduce and possibly others in the
 > future, versus it's role as the "home for Axiom". Do we really
 > want this "mix" of systems to be so prominent? 

I thought about this too. No conclusion yet, sorry.

 > Are there really
 > two *separate* goals here: 1) support Axiom, 2) promote the
 > "Rosetta" ideal of many different systems co-existing and growing
 > and working together?

We might be very welcome in mupad-combinat circles.


 > ... (big part skipped) ...
 > 
 > Anyway, perhaps making the distinction between Axiom support
 > and the broader Rosetta goals and support for Reduce, etc. is
 > just a matter of the right web site design for MathAction and/or
 > Plone? But MathAction is a wiki and kind of "fluid" by nature...

 > What do you think?
 
I thinking that you are a little to afraid of this sort of freedom. I think
that axiom is too small to be a worthy target of vandalism, if we become one,
we can take measures then. I don't see any other possible problems with
fluidity. Time will tell.

 > I am thinking (out loud) that maybe there is still a role for
 > http://www.nongnu.org/axiom/ ??

I'd suggest that we don't decide this right now.

Thanks a lot for your work, and for your thoughts,

Martin