On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 4:11 PM, kcrisman <kcris...@gmail.com> wrote: > This has been an interesting thread. In the end, I think that some (or a > lot) of Sage's attractiveness to end users goes away if it becomes a bunch > of possibly-updated packages that might or might not work with a current > version of Sage. I always found the "with(plots)" syntax (or whatever it > was) in Maple very frustrating, and that is presumably a 'core' package; > having random stuff suddenly not work (let me be clear, because it was left > behind by Sage core) would be even more so - as has been pointed out several > times here. > > Sage users (and potential ones) I speak with want more than just the "basic" > functionality, because they want something they can use throughout the > curriculum and in their own research. There are other (good) tools for > those who truly won't be doing anything beyond calculus. > > Now it's true that some material in Sage probably could have been in > separate packages, as it's quite specialized - likely a lot of the > sage-combinat stuff, the designs stuff, modular forms stuff (elliptic curves > are actually more popular, I think). But then there's the opposite problem > of finding out how to enforce that a package must compile with the most > recent Sage. This is R's model, but R tends to have a very different type > of package, one that implements something relatively narrow. Also, we don't > have the auto-testing resources of R. > > Given that, I'd definitely rather have the kitchen sink, including that > stuff, in Sage - as a *user*, not developer. I know that whatever is in > Sage will stay in it, and it will all be there.
Hi, I think these are some thoughtful comments, but I also think this is partly missing the point. This discussion isn't (necessarily) about how Sage is packaged and presented for the average user. One can certainly put together a metapackage containing all the bells and whistles and optional dependencies that one would ever (and never) need. So when bundling a SageMath "product" for users, there's not so much harm in throwing in the kitchen sink (generally, I don't think). I know William doesn't want to cut users off from functionality. I interpreted William's original message as being about how Sage is *developed*, and the current kitchen sink model is I think unsustainable for development. System integration can be hard, but at a certain point it's less hard than developing an overly large single project, IMO. Best, Erik -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
