On Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:29:59 +0000, "Dr. David Kirkby"
<david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote:
> I think the doc test would be a *lot* more useful if there were comments in
> the
> test like
>
> # In Mathematica
>
> # In[11]:= N[Integrate[ Sin[x]/x^2,{x,1,Pi/2}],50]
> # Out[11]= 0.33944794097891567969192717186521861799447698826918
>
> # This can also be computed in Wolfram Alpha, which uses Mathematica
> # as a back end.
> #
> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=N[Integrate[+Sin[x]%2Fx^2%2C{x%2C1%2CPi%2F2}]%2C50]
>
We really need to be careful about this. Wolfram|Alpha has very
specific terms of use, which I think could be interpreted as forbidding
precisely the use that you suggest. I quote from one of the relevant
sections (there might be others):
Ways You May Use Our Free Service and Its Results
The free Wolfram|Alpha service is available for ad hoc, personal,
non-commercial use only. For such use you are welcome to download
results, print copies, store downloaded content on your computer, and
reference this information in your documents. You may use it to get
information for your own use for any purpose, including occasional
purposes related to your job, as long as you aren't specifically being
paid to use Wolfram|Alpha.
Systematic professional or commercial use of the website, or use for
which you are being specifically paid, requires a commercial license. If
you are interested in a version of Wolfram|Alpha that allows such use,
please contact us.
It is permitted to use and post individual, incidental results or small
groups of results from Wolfram|Alpha on non-commercial websites and
blogs, provided those results are properly credited to Wolfram|Alpha
(see Attribution and Licensing below). It is not permitted to extract
multiple pieces of data and reassemble them into anything with the
characteristics of a data service, database, or source of large and
systematic collections of data. You are not allowed to use Wolfram|Alpha
to create something that is likely or intended to be reused as a data
source for further processing, or that in some other way serves as a
replacement or alternative to using Wolfram|Alpha itself. This applies
whether what you create is in electronic or print form.
One could argue that we are creating something that is intended to
replace or serve as an alternative to Wolfram|Alpha. In which case we
better not use their results in Sage (not even in doctests) or we're in
trouble.
(Note that similar terms of use might apply to Mathematica itself or
other commercial math software packages; I don't have any available at
this very moment to check.)
We can however use mpmath, octave, or whatever other suitably-licensed
software for independent verifications of numerical results.
Best,
Alex
--
Alex Ghitza -- http://aghitza.org/
Lecturer in Mathematics -- The University of Melbourne -- Australia
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