On May 1, 2008, at 2:42 PM, William Stein wrote:
> Optimistically, perhaps one indirect contribution in this > direction is that Sage being open might make some people > a little more aware > of the extent to which one must never blindly trust the output of > mathematical software. I think having the source code open > helps *reduce* people's trust in mathematical software... which > is in my opinion a good thing. In contrast, I think the approach > Mathematica takes with this statement from their reference > manual is bad: > > "Nevertheless, particularly after all the testing that has been done > on it, the probability that you will actually discover an error in > Mathematica in the course of your work is extremely low. > Doubtless there will be times when Mathematica does things you do not > expect. But you should realize that the probabilities are such that it > is vastly more likely that there is something wrong with your input to > Mathematica or your understanding of what is happening than with the > internal code of the Mathematica system itself.'' Arrrgggh, I just puked over my keyboard. William, don't you ever do that again. david --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
