On Jan 22, 2008, at 5:41 AM, mhampton wrote: > I think this could be an exciting way to get all the java applet > makers out there interested in sage, although I don't completely > understand the architecture of what this is supposed to do.
The way I understand it, JASON is a simple format to serialize hierarchal data structures, and writers/parsers are simple and available in many languages (e.g. Python, javascript, and Java). Kind of like a text pickle. It's what XML was supposed to be, without the insane amount of extra baggage. >> On Jan 22, 2008, at 5:54 AM, Martin Albrecht wrote: >> >> Wouldn't a Java applet imply that the functionality it provides >> could only be >> accessed via Sage's web interface? >> >> I would like to establish some (roughly) like this: If a >> computation cannot be >> expressed from the command line (in pure Python) then it cannot be >> a standard >> part of Sage. E.g. if you cannot compute $sin(x)$ for some $x$ >> from the >> command line but you can do it by clicking some Java buttons, then >> this >> functionality would not be considered a part of (standard) Sage. >> >> Would that make sense? >> Martin This is one of the huge advantages that Java has over javascript-- from the command line one can pop up an applet just as well as showing it in a browser (its easier in fact). Think of how jmol 3d works now (and though they provided a separate "application" interface, this is not a requirement to being able to pop it up). I would imagine that most applets would not provide new functionality so much as a alternative interface to the functionality already there. For example, a virtual scientific calculator would allow one to do arithmetic, or even algebra by pushing buttons, but it would just be an interface to the real work that gets done (via some command) in Sage (otherwise one ends up re-inventing the wheel and looses advantage of bundling with Sage). Another example is an applet for creating and laying out graphs via drag-and-drop. Now one can always specify vertex positions manually from the command line, but this interface is so cumbersome that few use it. I do agree that it's important any (computational) functionality should be available from the command line. On Jan 22, 2008, at 9:51 AM, Nick Alexander wrote: > One reason to do this is because automated testing graphical > interfaces (including, but not limited to, the notebook) tends to be > nigh on impossible. If it can't be done from the command line, it's > pretty hard to test; if it's not tested, I'd like it to not be widely > accepted. The testing concern is a valid one. However, I would see JASON used more as an easy interface to 3rd party applets that want to be able to interact with Sage. If some of those applets are really useful/ powerful eventually materialize we would consider including them with Sage on a case-by-case basis at that time. That being said, I think the best route is to make it an optional package and see where it goes from there. - Robert --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
