Re: Request for Scratchpad language+implementation document(s)

[Tim Daly]

I am no longer publicly active on Axiom. My focus is on directions

and extensions that are private research. The "tombstone" website

https://www.nongnu.org/axiom/ is maintained by Camm Maquire. Also see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_(computer_algebra_system)

The original textbook is available at

https://github.com/daly/PDFS/blob/master/bookvol0.pdf

The only information available for background is in volume 10.1

https://github.com/daly/PDFS/blob/master/bookvol10.1.pdf

which contains copies of papers reprinted with permission from the authors.

If you have any further questions I suggest you post your questions

on the fricas...@googlegroups.com mailing list where you will find

excellent people to help you. I am sure they would happily accept any

extensions you write as well as provide help for issues.

As for your thought that Lisp would make a useful implementation language

for other work I can highly recommend using Lisp. It is the "language of thought".

Tim Daly

On Sun, Apr 27, 2025 at 9:05 AM Duraid Madina <dur...@polyta.pe> wrote:

Dear Tim,

I am wondering if you can point me to some kind of "Theory of Operation" manual
or other expository document(s) detailing the design of the Scratchpad language
and its implementation in LISP.

I have been using Axiom as a "nicer Mathematica" for some years, but have never
"peeked under the hood" or considered extending it. Actually, until this week
I was entirely unaware of the existence of Scratchpad.

Recently, I have been tasked with implementing a "constraint-based (surface)
lofter" - a system to interpolate surfaces through systems of points, curves,
and sub-surfaces - and have mostly fleshed out the maths I need to do this.

I was about to blindly march foward and implement this in ad-hoc C++, but a
couple of colleagues suggested I consider LISP for this application.

I don't believe extending Axiom or writing SPAD is appropriate for my project,
but the idea of writing a "meta-language" (in LISP or C++), perhaps similar to
SPAD, to make my life easier is oddly attractive, hence my question: I figure
some time spent studying what seems to be the premier instance of this kind of
system (at least for "computational algebra") might be worthwhile.

I would be very grateful for any pointers to code or literature that you feel
best describe the "SPAD" language and its implementation.

Yours Sincerely,
Duraid Madina


P.S. I originally sent this email to da...@axiom-developer.org, however this
failed with an error:

(connect to mail.axiom-developer.org[72.23.235.203]:25: Connection timed out)

I hope you are safe and well.

[Qian Yun]

On 4/27/25 4:41 PM, Tim Daly wrote:
> I am no longer publicly active on Axiom. My focus is on directions
> and extensions that are private research. The "tombstone" website

> https://www.nongnu.org/axiom/ <https://www.nongnu.org/axiom/> is

There are a few places in the code base that points to
http://axiom-developer.org . Shall we update that link
to https://www.nongnu.org/axiom/ ?

- Qian

> maintained by Camm Maquire. Also see

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_(computer_algebra_system) <https://
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_(computer_algebra_system)>

[Waldek Hebisch]

On Wed, Jun 04, 2025 at 10:54:39AM +0800, Qian Yun wrote:
> On 4/27/25 4:41 PM, Tim Daly wrote:
> > I am no longer publicly active on Axiom. My focus is on directions
> > and extensions that are private research. The "tombstone" website
> > https://www.nongnu.org/axiom/ <https://www.nongnu.org/axiom/> is
>
> There are a few places in the code base that points to
> http://axiom-developer.org . Shall we update that link
> to https://www.nongnu.org/axiom/ ?

Yes, probably with some rewording.

--
Waldek Hebisch