Re: [Axiom-developer] [axiom-developer] What do diagrams in bookvol10.3 mean?

[Ralf Hemmecke]

> Besides, in my opinion (it is only my opinion, but still it is opinion
> of newcomer) HyperDoc documentaion is structured in non-standard fasion,
> which makes it not so easy to use at the beginning.

It's not just your opinion. But there is currently not enough manpower 
to treat every aspect of this big system. And if you look at the 
sources, you'll find that they are written in hypertex, which is close 
to tex, but has some hyperlinking features. There is no browser version 
since someone would have to translate (or automatically convert) the 
hypertex sources into html. Furthermore some of the sources, in 
particular the API descriptions are written in the source code itself as 
++ comments. These are currently automatically extracted from the code 
and made available to HyperDoc.

As for help, there is probably currently only HyperDoc and some friendly 
developers on the mailing list(s). I almost never use the )show, )what 
etc. commands but do all with hyperdoc.

> so it is ok. But it is structured in not so obvious way. Why AXIOM book
> is in Reference secion? And why Reference->Language do not contain
> description of creation of Domains, Packages and Categories? Where in
> reference compiler is described? Why Examples anre in Reference section?
> etc... All those things confuses for the first time significantly. Lack
> of formal syntax reference, collected in one place is either makes
> learning harder.

There are a few questions like "lack of formal syntax reference" that 
are not yet answered fully. Nobody has written a document about this (at 
least not to my knowledge). The closest thing you can find is the Aldor 
User Guide.

> Please, do not think, that I'm ungreatful man. Actually, I understand,
> that great efforts was made to develop axiom system (and its help in
> particular). I think, that axiom is really wonderfull (it is the only
> CAS I know, which has strict typing and syntax similar to haskell...
> although I did not try Reduce). I like it very much and I only hope,
> that things, that I've told above will help make Axiom even better and
> easier for newcomers to adopt, so more people will start working with it.

No problem. But the thing is, that even *you* can help. Posing such 
questions, suggesting improvements, etc. Be concrete, take your time and 
dig into the source code, ask other developers if you get stuck, provide 
patches. Axiom will not becoming better over night. More people are needed.

> (that's why I was wondering about diagrams, as I thought they could help
> me to build hierarchies of Domains of categories - diagram given on the
> axiom-developers.org <http://axiom-developers.org> is too big to be usable).

There are two quite usable diagrams in the original Axiom book by 
Jenks&Sutor. I don't however know whether these (smaller) hierarchies 
exist somewhere in the net.

> At the moment I think, that I will generate CartesianTensor(1, 3,
> Expression Integer) of required rank, ...

> If some one can give some hints about what can be used in solution of
> this problem, I would really appreciate it.

Open up a sandbox on http://axiom-wiki.newsynthesis.org, i.e. create, 
for example, the page 
http://axiom-wiki.newsynthesis.org/SandBoxTensorWithSymmetry and put 
your initial commands there. Perhaps, someone might help you in entering 
the right commands. Of course, you have to clearly describe you 
mathematical problem, i.e. what is input and what do you want to obtain 
in the end.

Ralf