RE: [Axiom-developer] SAGE, Axiom, and usage

[Bill Page]

On August 22, 2006 9:18 PM Gaby wrote:
> 
> Bill Page writes:
> 
> [...]
> 
> | Gaby would like to introduce his students to "symbolic
> | computation", but really Axiom (and Aldor) are not very
> | good at this -- by design.
> 
>     The appearance of AXIOM in the scientific market moves symbolic
>     computations into a higher plane, where scientists can formulate 
>     their statements in their own language and receive computer
>     assistance in their proofs. [...] AXIOM provides a powerful
>     scientific environment for easy construction of mathematical
>     tools and algorithms; it is a symbolic manipulation system,
>     and a high performance numerical system, with full graphic
>     capabilities.
> 
>              -- Gregory V. Chudnovsky in the Foreword of
>                 AXIOM, the Scientific Computation System
> 
> 
> I suspect the authors of the book forgot to tell him that the
> designers of AXIOM, by design, really did make it "not very good
> at symbolic computation". 
> 

Chudnovsky was not making the distinction between "symbolic
computation" and "computer algebra" that Steven Watt is making
in the papers that I cited previously. Perhaps Gaby, you were
also was using "symbolic" in this more general sense? Still I
believe that Steven's distinction is relevant and worth making
when comparing Axiom to it's alternatives.

The Chudnovsky brothers are certainly prolific and well known
mathematicians - particularly when it comes to computing pi to
high precision. I think it was great that Axiom received such
an endorsement from them.

Gregory Chudnovsky was a contemporary of Richard Jenks, one of the
original developers of Axiom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Chudnovsky

http://www.poly.edu/faculty/chudnowskygregory/index.php

http://www.math.poly.edu/research/gchudnovsky_publications.phtml

But one should keep in mind that in spite of a very considerable
investment by Numerical Algorithms Group in a completely new user
interface (based on Techexplorer) and extensive work on integration
of Axiom with the NAG numerical libraries, Axiom was a commercial
failure when placed in direct competition with Mathematica and
Maple from 1991 - 2001.

The quote from Chudnovsky above and in fact the entire Axiom book
from 1992 was clearly part of the marketing strategy for Axiom
at that time. I wonder what Dr. Chudnovsky would write today if
asked to compare the Axiom open source project to other open
source projects and the commercial counterparts?

Regards,
Bill Page.