some general thoughts concerning the kde-edu world

[Percy Camilo Triveño Aucahuasi]

Hi David,

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 3:27 PM, David Narvaez
<david.narvaez at computer.org>wrote:

> 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.


I support this idea ;)


> 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.
>

What kind of features do you need? In my case, I have reported as a
wishlist the features that I needed. Also, you can send me an email to see
how I can help? ;)


>
> >> 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.
>
>
You are right, perhaps I forgot to point out that improve Analitza implies
improve applications that are built with Analitza, so in a way, I
have presented an indirect use case.


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


Thanks for your feedback David!
Cheers,
Percy
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