Hi Ralf, On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Ralf Hemmecke<r...@hemmecke.de> wrote: > > William, thanks for this hint. > > But I still have a little comment. > > I've just started > > > ./sage -f mpir-1.2.p4 > > and actually I really was wondering how this can work if I only have the > binary version of sage. But as a surprise to me the log said... (see > below)... > > 1) That command should be shown together with the warning message of the > compiler flags. So that I can go on without having to ask on a mailing > list. (I believe that at google you first have to create an account to > post a message -- looks like an unnecessary burden.) > > 2) On the download page I would have expected to see posted a few > differences of the binary and the source distribution of sage. > The design with 'sage -f' and your hint of how I can recompile is great, > but without asking I would certainly have downloaded the complete source > distribution and recompiled from scratch. That's certainly a waste > bandwidth and time. > So I would suggest to add a few lines to the download pages and > explaining to people for which purposes they would need the source > distribution and when a binary distribution is certainly enough even for > development.
Thank you for this. Yes, you're right. Both the binary and source distributions can be used for development. The complete Sage source is contained in any binary distribution of Sage. So in a sense, that's a bit weird, because one would think that a binary is an executable blob without source code. I appreciate that you've raised this point, as it helps Harald Schilly (the primary Sage webmaster) and myself in making the Sage website (and the download pages) more usable. > As for 2) maybe I haven't looked carefully enough and this information > is actually there, but consider me as a person who just wants to try our > sage and maybe later add a few things to sage myself. I have the choice > between a source and a binary distribution. And I would certainly choose > the source one, since I would think that the binary distribution doesn't > let me change Sage (or at least the parts I am interested in). The > source distribution is certainly not wrong, but maybe I get more than I > actually need and waste bandwidth and compilation time. > Do you see the dilemma? Yes, I can see that. Anyway, you are encouraged to use a mirror closest to you for downloading. The Sage download pages recently went through a redesign. The new design now clearly (I hope it should be clear; please tell me if it's not so) highlights various Sage mirrors for downloading. This is to encourage people to download from a Sage mirror closest to them. Before the redesign of the download pages, the master mirror was one of the main server from which people downloaded Sage (binary and source), which made the server itself slow. After the redesign, we saw a decrease in traffic on the master server. So that's a good indication that people have been using the various mirrors around the world. > So it should be made clear that sage happily connects to a server at > compile time and downloads missing sources on demand. I consider that a > feature. Make it more visible. Thank you for your constructive criticism. Looks like Harald and myself need to consider how to make that more visible... -- Regards Minh Van Nguyen --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
