On 5/18/07, David Harvey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On May 18, 2007, at 11:40 AM, William Stein wrote: > > There have recently been a few comments that some abstract > > nonsense is going to magically fix coercion in SAGE. I am pessimistic. > > This must be the first time I am more optimistic than William about > something related to SAGE :-)
:-) > > The commutative diagram proposal is going to make > > SAGE more powerful, flexible, and *more complicated*. > > I think the point of introducing the abstract nonsense is to make > things *simpler*. If it doesn't do that, then I agree it will most > likely fail. Wait -- I don't think it is going to fail! I really really like it. I just don't think it will be easy, a magic fix, or anything else like that. I think it won't make what we have now (much) simpler; but what it will do is make much more sophisticated canonical coercions possible, which the current system doesn't support. I very much want to see such more sophisticated coercions be supported in the future. Robert Bradshaw and I spent a lot of time thinking up almost the same system as David Roe coincidentally on the same afternoon, so the time is right. I just don't think this is going to make what we already do easier. But that's no reason not to do it. -- William Stein Associate Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://www.williamstein.org --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
