some general thoughts concerning the kde-edu world

[David Narvaez]

On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 3:11 PM, Alexander Semke <Alexander.Semke at web.de> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Percy and me started a discussion that I think could be of interest for other
> people here. We decided to move the discussion  to kde-edu so that everybody
> can participate in it. I full-quote Percy's reply here and I'm going to answer
> soon. But before that I'll get a closer look at analitza :-)

Thanks for sharing this conversation. I am with Percy in most of the
points (except that I call Analitza a CAS library so my terminology
might be wrong).

> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 4:56 AM, Alexander Semke
>> To create yet another computer algebra system?
> That is not the goal of Analitza, to be a very lightweight CAS is the goal
> of KAlgebra (as far I understand), please remember that Analitza is a
> library, this is important distinction from a regular CAS.
>
> Surely you know, as I, that many CAS are great and better to do the kind of
> tasks that Analitza does, but those CAS doesn't have a library (interface)
> where other applications can use just part (not all) of their features. And
> if some CAS have this library (interface), then (for a simple math
> application) it would be to much to include all the CAS features into that
> tinny application Khipu, KAlgebra, KmPlot, Kig or even LabPlot2.

This. I am willing to mentor one idea during GSoC[0] to evaluate the
use of Analitza in Kig to simplify the code around solving
intersection of curves etc. The last time I checked with Aleix (and
that was like a year and some months ago, so it might have changed),
Analitza didn't have these features so I tried using GiNaC and got
stuck at some point.

>> If not, who should use analitza? KAlgebra? Who is intended to use this
>> program?
> Yes, programs like KAlgebra, programs that need to be tinny and for
> specific educational purposes.
>
> For example, as a use case: I guess that, since I live in Peru, then I
> understand this better: here many children and students that have the
> fortune to access a computer (specially in national schools) are doing
> their tasks not with high-end (not even average-end) hardware, yes this
> schools get their computers from many sources (e.g. via donations)
> Installing a entire CAS there can be too much (from a computational demand
> perspective)

This is the one point I don't agree with: improving Analitza won't
address this use case directly - and as a Latin American, I am very
familiar with this use case. Right now, you can install KAlgebra on
all of those computers and my guess is KAlgebra works just fine for
their needs. Improving Analitza will make it easier for people to
develop new math applications with a very specific purpose around KDE
technology. Arguably, they can do the same using GiNaC, but that's
another story. Again, I am all in favor of improving Analitza, I just
don't think this is a proper argument.

David E. Narvaez

[0] http://community.kde.org/GSoC/2014/Ideas#Project:_Kig_-_Analitza_Integration_.28Experimental.29