[Axiom-developer] Axiom September 2008 release

[daly]

The sources for the Axiom September 2008 release are up at:

github.com
axiom-developer.org
savannah.nongnu.org
sourceforge.net

Binaries will be available sometime this week.

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September 2008 Release Notes

Axiom website
   The effort here is to improve the support for offline literate
   documentation. The primary changes are the inclusion of graphs
   and additional book volumes.

* <http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/documentation.html>
  Contains the new algebra volumes and subvolumes.
* <http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/bookvol10.2abb.html>
  Contains a "clickable" graph that indexes into the algebra.




Graphviz, PDF, and HTML integration
   The effort here is to unify these three technologies in a way
   that simplifies the user interface and improves documentation

* Graphviz is used if available but not required
* Algebra graphs are automatically generated at build time
  from algebra source files
* Graphviz graphs now properly hyperlink into PDF files allowing
  any node in a graph to link to any document page




Book volume 0 (Jenks and Sutor)

* <http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/bookvol0.pdf>
* replace \over with \frac



Book volume 7.1 (Hyperdoc pages)
   The effort here is to create a literate document that contains
   all of the "live" pages used in hyperdoc. The PDF is being
   constructed so that a user can effectively "browse" the static
   hyperdoc pages, which are included, without a running Axiom.

* <http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/bookvol7.1.pdf>
* The source for all of the pages is now contained in this book.
* Hyperdoc now fetches the pages directly from the book.
* The hyper page directory and all files are gone.
* Some of the static page images are now inside the PDF
* Pages have href links allowing "in-pdf" navigation of pages




Book volume 10 (Algebra)
   The effort here is to create a way to describe and deeply
   document the algebra. This volume was split to better handle
   the structure of Axiom's information. 

* Split into 5 volumes
   - 10   Implementation
   - 10.1 Theory
   - 10.2 Categories
   - 10.3 Domains
   - 10.4 Packages




Book volume 10.2 (Algebra Categories)
   The effort here is to create fully indexed, cross-referenced,
   graphical documentation for Axiom categories in a standalone
   form. This is a "live" literate document which contains the 
   actual source code used to build the system.

* <http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/bookvol10.2.pdf>
* Contains 60 categories so far
* Has partial graphs for each category
* Has list of exported functions 
* Has information about source of functions
* Has index cross reference by function and category
* Has PDF href links so that URLs work:
   <http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/bookvol10.2.pdf#nameddest=AGG>
* Has forward/backward links between categories
* Automatically generates "clickable" graphs:
   <http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/bookvol10.2abb.html>
* Graph clicking automatically opens to the proper source code




New algebra examples (Daly, Tsikas)
   The effort here is to create "real time" documentation that
   gives the end user an example of how to construct the proper
   arguments and call a function. This puts examples into the
   system so users don't need to consult other documents.

* )d op someop shows examples of function usage
* about 100 new function examples were added 
* new comment syntax added to allow automatic API testing




Input Files
   There is a new effort to automatically extract the algebra
   examples in order to regression test the user API to the
   algebra. In addition there is ongoing test work.

* New input files (Hemmecke, Stumbo, Cyganski, Daly)
     bini, biquat, ifthenelse, liu, overload, sqrt3, typetower
* Changed input files (Hemmecke, Stumbo, Cyganski, Daly)
     bern, function, linalg, regset, test, tutchap2




Build changes

* graphics does not depend on compress, done at build time
* firefox html pages are now built before tests are run



Algebra changes

* FLAGG (FiniteLinearAggregate) -- removed a duplicate function



Interpreter changes (Page)

* add cost function to bottomUp output