On Jan 31, 4:26 am, Jason Grout <jason-s...@creativetrax.com> wrote: > On 1/29/11 9:52 AM, rjf wrote: > > > Even assuming that the junk-submitter takes no time at all from > > project management on the "front end", the need to review > > "contributions" > > is certainly a drain. Realizing, and then explaining to some loser > > why his code is junk takes time. > > Ironically, reading much of your post has been a less productive use of > my time than helping a motivated student learn from their mistakes and > teaching them how to improve themselves and the code they write. My > primary professional goal is to help *people* learn and improve > (including myself :).
How wonderful that your goal is so easily realized. I suppose that is easy if you consider explaining to some "junk-submitter" that his/her code is junk, coincides with your primary professional goal. With regard to Sage, I think the primary goal would be something like building a computer system that "does mathematics". Another goal would be educating students who have achieved an appropriate level of education in preliminary subject matter to learn more about computational aspects of mathematics (etc). Somewhere down the list (WAY down the list, in my opinion), is recruiting people who know zip about prerequisites by enthusing all over them about Python and such. I too feel reading comments on this thread are largely, but not entirely, a waste of time, in part because they are so, uh, remarkably ill informed. William Stein, for example, says "His [RJF's] experience is not based on him actually successfully having led any nontrivial open source software development projects. He has no credentials at all there, as far as I know. Yet, he is speaking about exactly that topic. " Um, I suppose my experience with Berkeley UNIX would be relevant, though one could argue that (a) I wasn't a sole proprietor in terms of leadership; (b) It wasn't open source, but beholden to AT&T [though with participation of many sites], and (c) was overtaken by Linux and therefore not successful? (d) not relevant because it wasn't written in python? Some history.. http://www.wikilivres.info/wiki/Twenty_Years_of_Berkeley_Unix:_From_AT%26T-Owned_to_Freely_Redistributable Or the writing and open-source distribution of Franz Lisp. And involvement in Macsyma, VAX Macsyma, open-source Maxima. Perhaps my experience is relevant, perhaps not. In either case, if you want to ignore my advice, you are free to do so. I will add, just to keep the thread going, that many people feel they have contributed to Microsoft Word. I know some students who worked at Microsoft as interns, who proudly claim ownership of a sub-sub-menu slot that they filled in with some new feature. While Microsoft Word has continued to grow in this way, it seems to me that newer versions are less and less useful -- they have a longer learning curve and for someone familiar with an older version, time-consuming to adapt to. And the new interface (Office 2010???) has me looking hither and yon for familiar buttons, now re-organized in some unfamiliar categories. Fortunately I don't have to use it much, and that may be the reason for difficulties, too. Could Sage fall victim to this design problem? Has it already? Consider that people are apparently confused by the difference between x^2+x is a polynomial and x^2+x is a Sage Polynomial. RJF -- 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
