[Axiom-math] TechExplorer

[root]

Grant,

Thanks for the feedback. I'll look at the other project pages you mention
and send Chris a note to see what he is up to.

The choice of MIT as a focal point is that they have put their
course work on the net in a systematic way. I'm hoping to leverage
that to expand Axiom's "science" coverage. That's not to imply that
non-MIT courses can't be a more useful starting point or are unwelcome
as a point of focus. It is just that the MIT work is easily accessed
and, apparently, freely shared. I wish they had set up a course in
computer algebra. There are several people I can think of that I'd
like to see teach such a course (Barry Trager leaps to mind).

My understanding re: techexplorer is that IBM has sold it off to
another company and that one of the Axiom authors (Sam Dooley)
has gone to join the company. Unfortunately I don't know the name
of the company and have no current address for Sam. I guess this
is the reason that it was not released as part of Axiom. I have
never seen the TechExplorer front end so I have no idea what it
does. TechExplorer was supposed to be a browser plugin, I believe.

I have three current ideas for a front-end. I'm the lead developer on
a second large computer algebra system, called Magnus (a special
purpose system in Infinite Group Theory). It has what we call a
"zero-learning-curve" front end which we've discussed cloning for
Axiom.

The second front end is to leverage Joris's work on TeXmacs. I haven't
spent that much time with it yet, unfortunately, so I'm not sure how
well it will work for non-document interaction.

The third front is an expansion of ADVI (Active DVI). This program
uses features of standard .dvi files to allow active content (e.g.
moving gifs, active windows with command prompts, etc) inside of
standard TeX documents. Since Axiom uses TeX and dvi as part of
the literate programming push this seems like an interesting direction.


Tim
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