Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: Mixing up variables: (was Re: conditionallydefined functions)

[Bob McElrath]

Bill Page address@hidden wrote:
> Well, as a physicist it seems that I am often in the position of
> having to remind myself that it is user *perceptions* and not
> facts that determine how users behave. :) You realize, of course
> that email via the axiom-developer mailing list is also archived
> and (quite) easily accessible via the web even for people who are
> not subscribed to axiom-developer? In MathAction the situation
> does seem to emphasize the web interface first with the ability to
> subscribe and act like a mailing list as a secondary feature. But
> really they are essential the same.
> 
> Lately I seem to be dealing more and more with the fact that
> people view interaction via the web (as in the case of a wiki)
> quite differently than they view material that is delivered and
> distributed via email. This currently seems to be a major
> obstacle to implementing active collaboration via the web. :(

There is a second problem here.  Adding latex or axiom commands to your
email is easy and convenient, but generally requires one to then go look
at the web page to see if you made any typos.  It's the whole
edit-compile-test cycle that people don't normally associate with email,
but is inherent in work with both latex and math software axiom/reduce.

I have thought about this quite a bit wrt latexwiki and don't really
have a good solution.  I have thought about bouncing emails back to
users when it contains a latex syntax error, so they can correct and
resubmit.  But this does not help with syntax-correct logic errors that
need to be edited like $x^23$ or unexpected output from axiom commands.

The situation suggests an integrated email/web/axiom interface that does
all this without the intermediate submit-to-webpage step.  But now I'm
getting waaaay beyond the modest goals that this group has collectively
tackled so far.

Ideas welcome here...

Who has played significantly with texmacs?

--
Cheers,
Bob McElrath [Univ. of California at Davis, Department of Physics]
    
    It is unpatriotic to question the Kleptocracy.

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