Sagemath in the Cloud is not a viable alternative to Sage Notebook ...

[maldun.fin...@gmail.com]

... at least in the current state.

The classic Notebook is much cleaner to use, comments can be set between the code fields and it has the nice typeset ability to display the output in latex.

I quite don't get why I should stop using the classic notebook for that, and furthermore I hope that the Sage Notebook development does not suffer because of the Cloud project.

But my main question still is: Why doesn't sage in the cloud keep the classic notebook? Isn't the sage philosophy: "Don't reinvent the wheel but build the car"? Instead something is new is written from scratch which is half as good and not as long tested.

PS: This is meant as constructive critic

[William A Stein]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 12:20 PM, <maldun.fin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ... at least in the current state.
>
> The classic Notebook is much cleaner to use, comments can be set between the code fields and it has the nice typeset ability to display the output in latex.
>

I think SMC is much cleaner to use (and more scalable), and I get
regular emails from people telling me they agree.
Comments can be set between code -- use %md.
You can typeset output in latex... in exactly the same way as in the
"classical notebook" (sagenb).

> I quite don't get why I should stop using the classic notebook for that,

You certainly may choose to use whatever software you want.

> and furthermore I hope that the Sage Notebook development does not suffer because of the Cloud project.

Contributions to sagenb are welcome! Just contribute to sage in the
usual way -- http://www.sagemath.org/doc/developer/

> But my main question still is: Why doesn't sage in the cloud keep the classic notebook?

Everything about the design and implementation of the classical
notebook is from 2006-2008; it misses out on massive improvements in
web technology during the last three years.

> Isn't the sage philosophy: "Don't reinvent the wheel but build the car"?

That was a quote from one Italian sage users in 2005, which we put on
a t-shirt. The Sage math software project *mission statement* is
"Create a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Mathematica,
Maple, and Matlab", pretty much by whatever (legal) means necessary.

SageMathCloud is not the sage math software project though. It has a
different goal. We've not formulated a clear mission statement yet...
though the primary motivations for SMC are (1) bad funding for math
software development, and (2) difficulty of installing Sage,
especially on MS Windows.

> Instead something is new is written from scratch which is half as good and not as long tested.

SMC is far, far better than sagenb...

-- William

> PS: This is meant as constructive critic
>

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--
William Stein
Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org
wst...@uw.edu

[maldun.fin...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, August 26, 2014 1:47:47 PM UTC+2, Stein William wrote:

I think SMC is much cleaner to use (and more scalable), and I get
regular emails from people telling me they agree. 

but obviously not all of them :) I'm not telling you that SMC is bad software, but it isn't mature yet, especially in terms of intuitive usabilty, contrary to the notebook, which was quite intuitive to use.

And actually the Notebook was much cleaner and more minimalistic in my opinion. The only real improvement that I see in SMC is that it has now a quite good syntax highlighting.

 

Comments can be set between code -- use %md. 
You can typeset output in latex... in exactly the same way as in the 
"classical notebook" (sagenb). 

That's nice ... and exactly what I'm talking about: It is absolutely not clear if I don't read the help (or write a complaint on sage flame) that I have to set an enviroment variable.

This is maybe not a big deal for myself, but many users are not so into programming and HTML. And would prefer some clickable alternative 

Would it be that hard to make a checkbox for Typesetting like in the old notebook?

Or a little + on the left which says make a commentary section?

> I quite don't get why I should stop using the classic notebook for that,

You certainly may choose to use whatever software you want.

> and furthermore I hope that the Sage Notebook development does not suffer because of the Cloud project.

Contributions to sagenb are welcome!    Just contribute to sage in the
usual way -- http://www.sagemath.org/doc/developer/

> But my main question still is: Why doesn't sage in the cloud keep the classic notebook?

Everything about the design and implementation of the classical
notebook is from 2006-2008; it misses out on massive improvements in
web technology during the last three years.

Which is no excuse for the lack of intuitive design ...

 

>  Isn't the sage philosophy: "Don't reinvent the wheel but build the car"?

That was a quote from one Italian sage users in 2005, which we put on
a t-shirt.  The Sage math software project *mission statement* is
"Create a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Mathematica,
Maple, and Matlab", pretty much by whatever (legal) means necessary.

SageMathCloud is not the sage math software project though.  It has a
different goal.  We've not formulated a clear mission statement yet...
though the primary motivations for SMC are (1) bad funding for math
software development, and (2) difficulty of installing Sage,
especially on MS Windows.

> Instead something is new is written from scratch which is half as good and not as long tested.

SMC is far, far better than sagenb...

 -- William

... after some time and some work on the interface

[maldun.fin...@gmail.com]

and also:

Maybe include some help markers, to point the user in the right direction on the beginning