> > Again I strongly disagree with removing all the AUTHOR: blocks from > > the Sage docstrings. I think doing this would > > (1) stupidly ignore a huge amount of what makes Sage work, > > (2) removes a valuable mechanism for getting a quick sense of > > who the main people are who consider themselves serious contributors > > to a file or function, > > (3) raises the barrier to *giving* people credit for their work. > > (4) completely goes contrary to the tradition in mathematics, where > > credit is everything -- which > > is why most mathematical objects are named after people (e.g., > > Bernoulli numbers, Tate curves, > > etc.). When some random mathematician, say, types > > sage: bernoulli_mod_p? > > I get > > ... > > AUTHOR: > > -- David Harvey (2006-08-06) > > This tells me something very useful immediately - that there's a > > real specific > > person behind this code, maybe somebody I'll see at a conference soon and > > thank for their function, ask further questions about it, etc. etc. > > If as a random > > mathematician I had to rely on clicking around with Mercurial to get info > > like > > that it would never happen, and I probably wouldn't trust what I see > > anyways. > > > > I agree!
I think I don't agree with this, but it's true that I am not doing mathematics. I think if someone devises something new, some new algorithm, or something, it's fine to put his name on it, but if it's just a code, I see it just as a code, nothing more. Clearly there are successful projects, like apache, that use this strategy (see that link I posted in my first email), so I don't think those people are stupid. I think both ways can work, so I just wanted to discuss this. I myself don't list my name in any functions or files I do, nor in SymPy or other projects. Mainly because I believe it's a work of many people and it's not fair to list just some. But anyway, I just wanted to know what you think about it. Ondrej --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
