Re: [Axiom-developer] Axiom, FriCAS, forks and teeth

[Bill Page]

On 7/9/07, C Y wrote:
> ... Literate programming is not a mainstream methodology (in my opinion)
> because few developers are willing to accept the long lead times and hard
> work of researching the necessary background to make a good literate
> document. ...

I think you are absolutely right about that. The trouble is: What are
we going to do about it? Bug fixes and new programming can only be
done by developers and the Axiom project still has far too few
developers to beat the odds. And to make matters worse, at the risk of
making a completely unsubstantiated but I think plausible
generalization, those developers who have the strongest programming
skills are least likely to have the skills required to write good
documentation (and vice versa).

I used to think that one possible solution would be for those people
who do have writing skills to work in a team with an experienced
develop who has the requisite programming skill. But with the Axiom
project at it's current size and the reluctance that many people seem
to have to really collaborate with others, even this seems to be
impractical.

So I am inclined to want to proceed with the Axiom project without
requiring literate programming (a situation no worse then at any other
time in Axiom's history) and take advantage now of the interest of
open source Internet community where and when it is possible to find
it. This way Axiom can progress instead of dying a slow death while we
all grow older. This does not mean abandoning the goal of a well
documented computer algebra system at the level of the program code.
If at some time in the future when/if the available literate
programming tools can be improved and/or if it is possible to attract
developers who have both the required skills or if it is somehow
possible to form working groups with people who are willing to combine
their skills, then perhaps the goal of improving Axiom in this way can
also be pursued. But as you implied, solving the problem of how to do
literate programming in a manner that will be accepted and used by
most developers today seems to be a very hard problem that has not
been solved yet.

Regards,
Bill Page.