Re: [Axiom-developer] Axiom, FriCAS, forks and teeth

[Doug Stewart]

Gabriel Dos Reis wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Jul 2007, C Y wrote:
>
> | 
> | --- Gabriel Dos Reis <address@hidden> wrote:
> | 
> | > I believe that the core of the system would have to change, evolved,
> | > rewritten, rethinked.
> | > The future -- at least the near future -- is in parallel/distributed
> | > computations with multicores expected to grow exponentially.  We
> | > will have to rethink most of the algorithms at the of the system.
> | > Not just envelops like graphics backends.
> | 
> | For performance concerns, certainly - and I would support and be highly
> | interested in such work.  For myself, I am more interested in the
> | limits of correctness verification than high performance parallel
> | computing.
>
> Multicore are no longer supercomputers myths you would find in
> highly financed National Labs.  They are the reality today.  
> If you order a machine from Dell, the probability that you
> get a multicore is very high.  How do you we wisely and efficiently
> use that computational power?  Clearly Waldek has an example where
> Axiom is making a dumb use of resource.  No matter how correct the answer
> is.  How would you react to computation of determinant of
> an nxn matrix with complexity O(n!)?
>
>
> Many things that were considered absolute truths or theorems a decade
> ago are no longer valid.  We have to retthink the algorithms we
> implement; we have to rethink the core system.
>
> -- Gaby
>
>   


Tim said:
"

The hardest thing I found about making the transition to literate
programming is that the "literate" part overrides the "programming"
part in importance. That is, besides writing for humans in comment
style you also end up having to "scramble" the program so it takes 
on a logical development style for the human reader. Writing for
the human is much harder and more time consuming than writing for
the machine. It only makes sense if the program is intended to
be maintained by other humans over a long time, raising the need
to write for humans.
"

Gaby said:
"
I believe that the core of the system would have to change, evolved,

rewritten, rethinked.
"

I think that this will be true, If you think back 20 years and see what 
computing was like then, compared to now, and then try and look forward 20-30 
years, yes things will change.
Now look at the undocumented or poorly documented code and try changing it!
I think Tim's comments of writing for the humans that will have to change- 
improve it, is fundamental. I gust have to look at some of my code written 20 
years ago to see how vitally important Tim's statement is.

Doug

PS I am just a user but I have been reading all the emails for the last 2 
years, and hope to some day be able to help.