Re: [open-axiom-devel] [Axiom-developer] [fricas-devel] documentation standards

[Gabriel D. R. <gd...@in...>]

On Wed, Dec 24, 2014 at 5:31 PM, Eugene Surowitz <su...@at...>
wrote:

> Ralf is only telling it as it is,
> but I wish I could be even as pessimistic as him.
>
> This is a crisis disguised as another documentation squabble.
> As I see the status of PanAxiom:
>
> OpenAxiom - One developer - little to no activity = dead branch.
>

Not really -- but YMMV.


> FriCAS    - One developer - one developer - system being devolved.
> Axiom     - One developer - when he goes Axiom goes.
>
> The basic issue that I see is that PanAxiom is really a
> software engineering project before it can continue to live.
> It brings to mind the Whirlwind project that turned the
> early hacked-up computer-like light-bulb testers into
> engineering standard replicable devices and spawned an industry.
> A significant part its development was thoroughly documenting
> what it did and how it did it.
>
> From the posts over the last year or so, I get these messages:
>
> Even minimal documentation efforts may either hard to start or
> will be too much bother with to add or maintain. Besides who needs it?
> As one young lady that I had set to maintaining a large system
> with many undocumented changes to it said:
> "I didn't know I needed to know archeology."
>
> The literate approach that Knuth created has no answer to
> mass of existing code problem: that is, he didn't think out
> a mechanism for the curious to dynamically add insights to
> the system's code even if literate.  Inverses are sooo.. hard.
>
> Oh, and PanAxiom has no systematic development of basic numerology.
>
> Xmas, Gene
>
>
>
>
> On 12/24/2014 1:24 PM, Martin Baker wrote:
>
>> On 24/12/14 18:12, Ralf Hemmecke wrote:
>>  > It's open source development so I don't have to agree with you and can
>>  > choose to invest my time into something that doesn't make me unhappy.
>>
>> I strongly agree with Ralf on this documentation issue.
>>
>> Martin
>>
>>
>
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