>Wasn't Magnus Tim Daly's main example of a project in trouble >development and usage-wise? From this thread: >http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/c65e235f83cb2cd1/93b5dc531e50bb1c?lnk=gst&q=magnus#93b5dc531e50bb1c > >Tim wrote: >"the only person >who can properly maintain, modify, and extend the code will no >longer be available and the code will be frozen in time. My >Magnus infinite group theory project has this problem. >New people coming onto the project cannot find the literature >that corresponds to the actual code because it does not exist. >Most published results are 5 page conference papers that just >hint at the non-core, but vitally important, details if they >mention them at all. This problem has 2 parts, both of which >stem from the lack of focus on the new discipline of computational >mathematics. Part 1 is that journals and conferences only want >short papers, which are adequate for math, not the complete >implementation. Part 2 is that there is no place to describe the >actual code-level optimizations that make the implementation >practical and fast. "
Magnus is a stalled project. It was a free, NSF-funded, top-of-line, best-of-breed project that brought together Fields-medal level people. The algorithms in Magnus are world-class and written by experts. They work, and work well. And they are GPLed, free, and open sourced. Magnus has a truly innovative, zero-learning-curve, notebook-like front-end. It runs algorithms in parallel, with user-controlled time proportions. It has context-sensitive menus and help systems. It has a problem-graph that organizes the results of experiments and allows you to pursue mulitiple-independent lines of research on the same "notebook". Sage is nowhere near the level of sophistication Magnus displays today. Did I mention that it is free? Magnus has been used (thru python) in an embedded demonstration of cryptographic security using infinite groups to protect user logins. It has been shown to allow logins on systems all the way down to a handheld zaurus. (Infinite groups are MUCH harder to break than other schemes and Gilbert can show why these are hard (in a cryptographic sense). Small keys, yet solid locks.) Historically, Magnus was where Sage is now. The quote above is in the context of literate programming, or lack thereof. Magnus is documented at the same level as other open source projects (e.g. Sage). The code is all there, freely available, and written in a widely used, VERY popular language (C++). It can be used from Python. Yet Magnus and its algorithms now suffer from the same fate that I predict L-functions in Sage, and Sage itself, will suffer 5 years from now. William will have his system, will have published his research (the classic 5 page papers), and will have retired to Alaska. That is, >New people coming onto the project cannot find the literature >that corresponds to the actual code because it does not exist. But we've already had this discussion and it is clear that I'm completely out-in-the-weeds, talking-nonsense, and obviously have no idea how REAL-open-source-projects are done. So lets just leave it where it left off before, which is that I've simply dropped the attempt to give the benefit of experience. Tim --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
