axiom-developer.org · Domains

Re:RIP and thank you for AI by cpghost · 2011-10-25 02:29 · Score: 1 · on John McCarthy, Discoverer of Lisp, Has Passed Away

Not to forget Axiom.

Re:This guy is clueless by mapnjd · 2008-08-08 01:05 · Score: 1 · on IBM Exec Bemoans Lack of Industry-Specific Linux Apps

Bob Sutor is a darned clever guy. I met him at ISSAC '94.

He's one of the (many) developers of Axiom, but he co-wrote the book and worked on it full-time for years.

He also wrote a LaTeX plugin for Netscape (way back when) called IBM TechExplorer.

He's a lot more clever than you or I and definitely isn't clueless.

Open source systems are out there, too by starseeker · 2007-05-01 14:00 · Score: 4, Informative · on Mathematica 6 Launched

While you're checking out Mathematica, consider taking a look at the major open source computer algebra projects:

Axiom: http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/ (formerly known as Scratchpad) was developed at IBM as a commercial system, sold to NAG, and released a few years ago as an open source program.

and

Maxima: http://maxima.sf.net/ (descended from the pre-commercial Macsyma codebase) was maintained by William Schelter for many years and he obtained permission to release it as open source. Sadly, he passed away a few years later but the Maxima project has grown and now has many active contributors.

They won't have the glitzy graphics or army of specialized packages Mathematica boasts, but they also don't cost $1500 and (theoretically) can be audited for correctness all the way down to their foundations. I regard the latter as very important for people trying to do scientific research with computer algebra tools, and what's more no commercial company is required for their survival (the story of Macsyma is a very good object lesson.)

Maxima is the more "engineering" oriented of the two systems and will probably make more sense to Mathematica inclined users - it can use gnuplot, run on Windows and has a decent GUI called wxMaxima: http://wxmaxima.sf.net./ Axiom is more oriented towards being "strong" mathematically - it takes more getting used to and has very ambitious goals for long term mathematical research. It is attempting to become a literate program in the tradition of Knuth's TeX system. It doesn't currently have the interfaces to familiar tools the way Maxima does.

Both systems are already very powerful and while there are many bugs to work out progress is being made. If you're shopping around for a CAS and are interested in open source systems, I highly recommend checking them out.

(Bias disclosure - I have been a (minor) member of the Maxima project and am currently interested in/doing a little work on/with Axiom, in case the URL in my info doesn't give it away.)

Re:Check out Semantic Wikis by Anonymous Coward · 2006-01-22 06:34 · Score: 1, Interesting · on Other Uses for Wiki Software?

See also the use of wikis as interfaces for literate-style development. Especially http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/FrontPage

"even new packages for Common Lisp" - hey! by starseeker · 2005-08-11 10:25 · Score: 4, Informative · on Summer Internships - The Good, and the Bad?

Common Lisp has been attracting a lot of attention lately, compared to previous activity. Several of the Common Lisp projects funded were for the purpose of improving things like foreign function interfaces, and thus speed Lisp's popularity and utility even further.

There are a lot of applications written in Lisp that are special enough and powerful enough to justify lots of attention. For example:

ACL2 : http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/moore/acl2/
This is a high powered proof assistant and IIRC was used by AMD to verify some parts of their chip design.

Maxima: http://maxima.sourceforge.net/
This is a computer algebra system, with the ability to do things like symbolic integration. Not your run of the mill program, and very difficult to do except in a language like lisp or a similar language

Axiom: http://www.axiom-developer.org/
A second computer algebra system, with a slightly different approach than Maxima. Also extremely powerful, and is pushing the envelope of robust, literate program design for computational mathematics.

None of these has a pretty interface, granted (at least not one written in lisp) but these are not your everyday programs. Lisp is a real language in real, non-trivial use.

There are a variety of other projects being undertaken, check out http://common-lisp.net/ for many of them. And if you want to code lisp remember to explore SLIME+Emacs.

Axiom by kratt6 · 2004-12-16 07:51 · Score: 1 · on Open Source Math Software For Education?

Since it fits nice:

Announcing Axiom 3.0 BETA

This is to inform you that the free computer algebra system Axiom has now reached a very usable state.

Axiom is a general purpose Computer Algebra system. It is useful for research and development of mathematical algorithms. It defines a strongly typed, mathematically correct type hierarchy. It has a programming language and a built-in compiler.

Axioms homepage is at http://axiom.axiom-developer.org/

Instructions to download Axiom for the various platforms, including Linux and MS Windows can be found at
http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/mathaction/Ax iomDownload

The licenses under which the various parts of Axiom are released can be found at
http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/mathaction/Co pyright

Clearly, Axiom is not free of bugs. For some of them, patches are proposed. However, these patches have not been applied yet. It is easy to do it yourself, as can be seen from
http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/mathaction/Ax iomDocumentationAndCommunity#bugsandpatches

Since the wish list
http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/mathaction/Wi shList
is long, we decided to provide bounties, i.e. small amounts of money, for people willing to implement some of these features. Among others, we need people who would

* like to integrate a LaTeX-rendering engine into our Wiki http://page.axiom-developer.org/zope/mathaction

* know how to resurrect the connection to the alternative compiler Aldor

* know enough Lisp to make graphics work on MS Windows

* implement some of the missing mathematical algorithms.

Join us at axiom-developer@nongnu.org!