Hi Tal, I'm in the middle of writing documentation tickets for pre-university students in the Python part of the Google Highly Participation Contest. One ticket will be "Access a Sage Notebook and record a 10-20 minute screencast demonstrating input evaluation, docstring and source lookup, tab-completion, LaTeX and HTML output, and 2D & 3D plotting."
List of future documentation tasks for the contest: * Record a screencast on the Sage Notebook * Make 40 screenshots of the Sage Notebook and write titles and captions for them * Create a web tour of Sage similar to http://picasa.google.com/features, see attempt at http://whatissage.timothyclemans.com * Record a screencast on symbolic computation in Sage * Improve Sage Wiki (http://wiki.sagemath.org) * Translate "SAGE Programming For Newbies" (http:// sage.math.washington.edu/home/tkosan/newbies_book/) to another language * Create four good examples of mathematical art with the Sage interface to Tachyon * Create more advanced examples than the ones in the Sage documentation of 2D plotting * Implement http://amath.colorado.edu/computing/mmm/ for Sage at http://rosettacode.org * Write 30 Sage programs to be added to entries at Sloane's OEIS, see http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/b5827993f0f63c4c/ We already have numerous talks on Sage on Google Video, see http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=sagemath.org&so=0&num=10 and a number of PDFs from talks. I worked on the makings of an interactive introduction to Sage, see http://whatissage.timothyclemans.com. There is work on getting R merged into Sage, but I don't know much about what is happening. Timothy On Dec 9, 5:02 am, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Robert and everyone. > > a few small suggestions > 1) the main page gives lots of options SAGE has, but no direct links > to tutorial material . and when I went to the tutorial page - I > couldn't find instructions on how to do what the main page promised > me. I am guessing the bounce rate for the main page is rather high (I > hope you have some sort of website analytics installed on the site - > since I didn't see google analytics in the code) > 2) Consider creating a large shiny button titles "Download SAGE for > XXX(windows/linux)" link (instead of just a text link) > 3) take the time to create some powerpoint presentation with > screenshots demonstrating what SAGE is, and can do, and how to do it - > and embad it in your website usingwww.slideshare.net > 4) you have a video of what SAGE can do - put it on youtube or google > video or vidler, and share it with the world. > > The way it looks now - the website doesn't give me the feel "come and > play with SAGE - it's easy" - and it's a shame it doesn't. > > Also - it seems your main point is your community - then tell "the > world" about it, that's where blogs can be used. upload some photos of > your meetings (flickr), give some pointers as to what you are doing > and where you are heading - help others (like me ) understand that you > are a live community - that i should want to join. (like the wordpress > and R and linux communities are). > > P.s: Another question I can't seem to find the answer to - Should I be > interested in investing my time in SAGE If I am already using R. what > advantages would an SAGE-R hybrid give me ? > > Hope I am not bursting into an open door, or a closed window, > Tal. > > On Dec 9, 1:35 pm, Robert Bradshaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > I think perhaps eventually we could move to something like this, but > > now is not the time. Though I have no way of verifying this, I would > > hypothesize that many more people come to the site to find out what > > sage is/what it can do for them than come to see "What's new with > > SAGE since last time I looked?" Our site is tailored very well > > towards the former, and I think that's where our emphasis should be > > for now. Its the one who aren't yet familiar with Sage whose > > attention we need to grab right away. When the latter becomes a more > > significant audience, then we should consider radically altering the > > main page, but for now I doubt we'd alienate many by having the > > latest news a click away. (Personally, I rarely visit the main page > > of sagemath.org--when I start typing "sage" in the browser bar > > "sagetrac" comes up first :-). I often send the sagemath.org link to > > others though.) > > > If anything, I think there should be fewer announcements on the front > > page. Right now the first "selling point" paragraph is over halfway > > down the main page because of all the one-liners. Because I can > > barely see them, my eye is not drawn to the attractive graphics and > > arguments below. I think the goal of the main site should be getting > > people to start reading starting with "Use SAGE for studying a huge > > range of mathematics..." and continuing all the way to the bottom > > 'till they leap out of their chair and exclaim "where can I get this > > NOW?" and we hit them with the download/public worksheet links. > > (Perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration, but hopefully you get my > > point.) Currently, we have > > > SAGE: Open Source Mathematics Software <-- Perhaps "Open Source > > Mathematics Software" could be incorporated into the logo (on this > > page). This is also the title of the webpage, so I don't think much > > would be lost. > > > "Building the Car Instead of Reinventing the Wheel" <-- one of my > > favorite quotes... > > > Download Documentation <-- these certainly need to be prominent. > > Tutorial Support > > > We are being slashdotted and being dugg! > > SAGE 2.8.15 has been released (December 3, 2007). > > SAGE Days 6 in Bristol, UK was a great success. > > ^^^ > > News is good, to tell people what's going on, and to give the > > (accurate) impression of an active and fast-moving project. However, > > if I don't yet know much about Sage (and I'm making a case that this > > should be the primary target audience of this page) it doesn't tell > > me much and slows me down (or even hijacks me) from reading the real > > meat below. Maybe one big announcement could be good, or maybe not > > even that (here). > > > I would love for all this info to stay on the main page, just not get > > in the way of getting the message out of "what is Sage?". I can't > > believe I'm suggesting it, but perhaps we should consider adding some > > kind of a sidebar to the page? > > > Of course, everything I'm saying here should be taken with a huge > > grain of salt, I am in no way a markiting expert and could be > > completely wrong about this. But I really think we should consider > > the audience of this front page. > > > That being said, I think a blog is a great idea! Certainly > > subscribing to sage-devel to get an idea of what's going on with the > > Sage project is not for the casual user :-). > > > - Robert > > > On Dec 8, 2007, at 7:03 PM, Bobby Moretti wrote: > > > > At the very least, I think it would be a good idea to use a content > > > management system for the website. > > > > The front page could be blog-like, containing mostly news, updates, > > > info, and releases. > > > > Then if someone has a personal blog entry that says something > > > interesting about Sage, we can just link to it from the front page as > > > a news story. This way everything would be archived, etc. > > > > -Bobby > > > > On Dec 8, 2007 6:59 PM, didier deshommes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >> 2007/12/8, William Stein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > >>> Hi, > > > >>> My brother suggests that a "Sage blog" be somehow created (see > > >>> below). It's > > >>> a good idea. Any ideas about what this might entail? Weekly > > >>> developer > > >>> summaries? A "cool trick"? Little articles? Etc. I have > > >>> never blogged > > > >> +1 > > >> This could also be good to announce new versions, improvements, > > >> papers > > >> written in Sage, etc. Developers blogging about Sage could be fun: it > > >> would expose how some other parts of the Sage code works (this would > > >> also help Bus Days). For example, when I wrote QDRF, I blogged about > > >> what one would need to do in order to implement (floating-point) > > >> fields in Sage since I had learned a great deal about this part of > > >> the > > >> code. > > > >> Of course, the thing with blogging is time :) . If you're blogging, > > >> you're not writing code and sometimes you just can't afford that ;). > > > >> didier > > > >>> at all, but I know some of you (e.g., Martin Albrecht and Ondrej > > >>> Certik) > > >>> are old pros at blogging. Thoughts? > > > >>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > >>> From: Dennis Stein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >>> Date: Dec 8, 2007 1:28 PM > > >>> Subject: blog and rss > > >>> To: William Stein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > >>> William, > > > >>> Non-developer users of Sage might enjoy learning more about what is > > >>> going on in the Sage world. A blog would be a great way to do this. > > >>> You could post things like the AMS event, published articles, > > >>> news of > > >>> major changes in the software, upcoming cool new features, something > > >>> funny that is Sage related, a profile of someone who has > > >>> significantly > > >>> contributed to the software, a user profile, and so on. People > > >>> could > > >>> subscribe to it via email or RSS. You could use a free blog service > > >>> (webpress or blogspot or whatever) and use Google's free Feebburner > > >>> for the email subscription service for people to subscribe. > > > >>>http://www.mathworks.com/company/rss/index.html > > > >>> Google has a blog that they post to about once every three weeks > > >>> or so. > > > >>> Obviously making the software the best it can be is a bigger > > >>> priority, > > >>> but a blog could be useful at some point for keeping in touch with > > >>> people (reporters, users, fans). > > > >>> --Dennis > > > >>> -- > > >>> William Stein > > >>> Associate Professor of Mathematics > > >>> University of Washington > > >>>http://wstein.org > > > > -- > > > Bobby Moretti > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
