Mathematica Newsgroup Proposal
- To: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net
- Subject: [mg253] Mathematica Newsgroup Proposal
- From: steve at christensen.cybernetics.net (Steve Christensen)
- Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 01:02:17 +0500
MathGroup: MathGroup has been growing very quickly since it was restarted and the number of mail messages and members is getting very large. I continue to upgrade my network link, but even that will not be enough to handle the traffic. Many members of the group have requested that I form a net newsgroup. After many months of discussion with the newsgroup advisors who handle the creation of moderated newsgroups, I have just posted the Request For Discussion (RFD) appended below to the newsgroups indicated. This effort now appears to have the support of the advisors and WRI. I request that those of you who wish to be involved in the discussion and support for the formation of this group, do so in the usual net way as indicated in the RFD. If all goes well and the group is eventually voted in (probably in early 1995), I will be able to serve a larger audience in a more convenient way. For those who still wish to get MathGroup via email, that will continue. All mail and newsgroup postings will go both places. Note also that the MathGroup archives can now be reached via the Web and Mosaic, etc. I have created a Web page for MathGroup that points to the MathGroup archive on MathSource at WRI. It is at http://christensen.cybernetics.net/MathGroup.html All the pages at this site are still being construction so bear with me. If the network link is down or overwhelmed please go directly to MathSource directly. Comments are welcome. Steve Christensen ---------- ------------------------------------------------------------- REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD): COMP.SOFT-SYS.MATH.MATHEMATICA ------------------------------------------------------------- Group name: comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica Status: Moderated Summary: Discussion of all topics related to the software system Mathematica (R) and related packages, third party products, notebooks, and programs. Proposed by: Steven M. Christensen Contact Address: steve at christensen.cybernetics.net Cross-Posted to: news.announce.newsgroups news.groups sci.math.symbolic MathGroup - Mathematica email mailing list (Email: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net) (Web: http://christensen.cybernetics.net/MathGroup.html) Distribution: world This is a formal request for discussion (RFD) of the creation of a USENET newsgroup comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: An effort is underway to reorganize the comp.soft-sys groups into subgroups covering specific categories of software systems. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL discussion will take place in the news.groups newsgroup. All follow-up posts should go to that group. Details on the proposed structure of this moderated group are presented below. All interested parties are encouraged to participate in this discussion. The discussion will take place for 30 days following the date of this posting. If there are no changes or other outstanding issues at that time, I will call for votes (CFV) to be taken by an independent third party. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charter ------- The new newsgroup comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica is proposed to combine the very active discussion on the Mathematica program from Wolfram Research, Inc. now taking place in various newsgroups, in particular, sci.math.symbolic, but also groups covering topics in numerics, languages, graphics, research, physics, desktop publishing and so forth and the Mathematica mailing list - called MathGroup - currently being run by S. Christensen. The moderator would "filter" out questions about pricing, availability, and other postings not of general interest and focus the discussion on programming, algorithms, packages, notebooks, and third party programs. Help with all manner of package design and debugging will also be provided. The newsgroup will be linked to the MathGroup mailing list. Rationale _________ Many computer mathematics programs now exist and are being discussed in the sci.math.symbolic newsgroup or in groups like comp.soft-sys.matlab and many other newsgroups or separate mailing lists. Readers of these groups are often exposed to long technical discussions of systems they are not using or to questions that might better be sent to the vendor. Sci.math.symbolic was originally intended for discussion of "deeper" issues regarding algorithms for symbolic computing and related mathematical and computer science issues and not for the details of any given vendor or developer's functions, features, or bugs. A very large number of postings about the Mathematica software are now finding their way to sci.math.symbolic. The Mathematica mailing list - started six years ago after the introduction of Mathematica by S. Christensen - has been so active that many members (numbering in the many thousands now) have asked for the formation of a USENET newsgroup on Mathematica. Since this mailing list is independent of Wolfram Research - though the vendor does participate in the discussions - constructive criticism has been permitted as well as praise. The "flame wars" between rival vendors will be avoided. The combined postings from both of these groups would create a very active newsgroup and provide a place for focused discussion. Moderation will keep out questions that should go directly to the vendors or are so simple or esoteric as to not be of interest to a general audience. The group name is chosen to emphasize that systems for doing mathematics by computer now do much more than symbolic algebra and calculus and are used not only in the so-called mathematical sciences, but in engineering, graphics, medicine, social sciences, financial applications, databases, and many other areas. The comp.soft-sys.math groups would be similar in form to comp.ai, comp.cad, comp.databases, comp.graphics, comp.lang, and others. The sci.math groups are more appropriate for discussion of algorithmic and other deep theoretical issues. With Mathematica now having approximately one million users and with over 80 books published on the software and its applications in many areas, there is a very large audience for such a focused newsgroup. Other Details ------------- There has also been a call for the creation of a FAQ for Mathematica. As part of the creation of a newsgroup, a FAQ will be produced and maintained. It will be posted to the group monthly and also archived on MathSource and other FAQ archives. Commercial advertising related to Mathematica from software vendors, publishers, etc. will be permitted in a very limited fashion. The postings to the newsgroup will be archived on MathSource which is the main archive for all Mathematica related public information. Archives at other sites may also be done. Backup moderators and posting sites are being considered. -------------------------------------------- Steven M. Christensen PO Box 16175 Chapel Hill, NC 27516 USA Phone/Fax: 919-967-9853 Email: steve at christensen.cybernetics.net -------------------------------------------- From villegas Thu Dec 1 19:13:32 1994 Received: from dragonfly.wri.com by lead.wri.com with SMTP id AA20234 (5.67b/IDA-1.4.4 for <sw>); Thu, 1 Dec 1994 13:13:03 -0600 Received: from [140.177.201.153] (villegasMAC.wri.com) by dragonfly.wri.com with SMTP id AA12633 (5.67b/IDA-1.4.4 for <wri-frontend>); Thu, 1 Dec 1994 13:13:29 -0600 Message-Id: <199412011913.AA12633 at dragonfly.wri.com> X-Sender: villegas at wri.com (Unverified) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="========================_15593100==_" Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 13:13:32 -0600 To: wri-frontend at wri.com From: villegas Subject: crash log, Function Browser --========================_15593100==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" With MacsBug again working on my machine, I can get some crash logs for the new front-end. The following log was taken after I had brought up the Function Browser entry for N. The crash happened when I tried to scroll down a couple lines in that entry. Robby --========================_15593100==_ Content-Type: text/plain; name="crash.scroll"; charset="us-ascii" Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="crash.scroll" Address Error at 000148F0 68040 Registers D0 = FFFF0000 A0 = 011C129C USP = 010CC528 D1 = FFFF0000 A1 = 0000014A MSP = 00000000 D2 = 010D0011 A2 = 00015C8E ISP = 011C12A8 D3 = 00000000 A3 = 000115E0 VBR = 00015280 D4 = 00002004 A4 = 00010002 CACR = 80008000 SFC = 0 D5 = 001FF000 A5 = 01179EB8 DFC = 1 D6 = 00002704 A6 = 00000000 PC = 000148F0 D7 = 00000001 A7 = 011C12A8 SR = SmXnzvc Int = 7 Start of link chain does not point to a stack frame Bad stack: stack pointer must be even and <= stack base The Application heap at 00BDDC00 is ok Closing log --========================_15593100==_--