On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 3:48 PM, François Bissey <f.r.bis...@massey.ac.nz> wrote: >> I've tested on multiple Solaris systems, both with and without 'flex' in >> the path - see trac ticket for further details. >> >> The more I look at the Singular package in Sage, the more I realise it is >> a complete mess. There are 5 copies of install-sh for example. Sage's >> spkg-install has options that are not listed as options to the Singular >> 'configure' script, and don't do what their names imply (i.e. >> --without-bison and --without-lex). >> >> I've just downloaded the latest Singular source, and that is no less of a >> mess. So both Sage's spkg-install and the current Singular source code >> are a bit poor in my honest opinion. >> >> As such, I think this hack is the best we can do. >> >> It at least allows Sage to build when flex is not installed. > yes singular is a downright mess, upstream and in sage. > Apart from moving to the latest upstream I think the singular spkg > is due for a spring clean. It build an enormous amount of targets > in a way that looks like a very careful choreography and apart > from libsingular and the singular binary there is no indication > sage uses any of the other stuff built. > > I have just read William's opinion and it may be true that is generally easy > to build. But reproducing the set up used in the sage spkg from a packaging > point of view is quite difficult.
My main point is that it can be unduly offensive to criticize software quality based purely on looking for a few minutes and deciding it looks complicated or ugly. I think one has to take a broader view and consider how the software works in practice, how easy it is to understand when you're seriously interesting in hacking on the code, etc. A huge amount of effort has gone into Singular, and I greatly appreciate that it is open source. I think the Sage project has a very good relationship with the Singular project, and I hope criticism of the quality of their work will be constructive and not offensive. That's all. It would be cool if some the ideas you guys have could be added to http://wiki.sagemath.org/days23.5 which is the joint Sage/Singular meeting this summer. -- William -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
