Re: [Axiom-developer] CVS, Arch, Darcs

[Camm Maguire]

Greetings!

"Bill Page" <address@hidden> writes:

> On Thursday, November 18, 2004 9:16 PM Tim Daly wrote:
> 
> >...
> > From axiom's view GCL is a modular piece but it needs
> > integration work to build smoothly and end users shouldn't
> > do that.
> > 
> 
> >From the point of view of *end users*, I think it should not
> be more complicated than
> 
>   $ apt-get install axiom
> 
> (or the equivalent)
> 
> Forget about end-users building anything. All they want to

I think this point is very important.

Just a suggestion -- We need three tiers in the axiom community:

Developers (us) -- work on axiom bugs/features, ideally on only one
                   reference system

Porters/distros -- Build binaries for their favorite machine, and
                   perhaps pass patches back, which we should
                   incorporate in such a way as to not interfere with
                   the reference build and require no direct testing
                   on our part.

                   Support all 'it doesn't build for me' types of
                   reports from users who should (ideally) be using a
                   binary.


Users           -- Use the binaries, supply feedback, bug reports,
                   etc. 


Again, this is just a suggestion.  I think things are great just the
way they are too -- thanks to everyone's heroic efforts!


> do (and all they should expect to have to do) is to learn
> to use Axiom and get on with their main work. If we are lucky
> perhaps some end-users will be willing and interested in
> making they Axiom application work accessible to others.
> 
> For everyone else, there are so many levels and combinations
> of experience, skill and patience that I can't imagine how it
> would ever be possible to satisfy everyone. I would like more
> people to become more actively involved with Axiom development
> but for reasons that have little to do with the tools we are
> using, it seems unlikely to me that this will change even if the
> Axiom development process somehow manages to be more accessible.
> Basically, most people just do not have enough time to devote
> to this. So from my point of view, what is happening right now
> is (more or less) optimal.
> 
> About the only improvement I can think of right now is to make
> easily available a larger and well documented library of up to
> date and tested pre-compiled binaries for as many platforms
> and linux variants as possible. It would be great if some people
> besides Tim and Cam could contribute to such a library. I would
> be very pleased to set up an area on MathAction and the Axiom
> Portal where such contributed binary versions can be uploaded.
> 
> Regards,
> Bill Page.
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Camm Maguire                                            address@hidden
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."  --  Baha'u'llah