[SnapPea-planning] priorities

[Nathan Dunfield]

> 	I don't know anything about Sage, but I suppose a major goal should
> be to have a robust and simple system for extensions and plugins as
> well as for export and import of descriptions of manifolds and
> geometry. It would be especially wonderful if it didn't require
> substantial technical experience in programming to contribute a useful
> extension.

Sage is really very cool, though on the surface the idea behind it  
seems implausible.  Basically it's an amalgam of very large number of  
open-source mathematics packages (PARI, GAP, Singular, Maxima, GMP,  
NTL, and many more) using Python as the glue.   As a result, it has  
the broadest range of any system I know (calculus to number theory to  
cohomology), and the choice of using a mainstream programming language  
rather than a custom one turns out to very useful.   It includes a web- 
browser based notebook interface which you can also use with any of  
the underlying components (so if you ever wanted to use GAP from a  
Mathematica-like notebook Sage allows you to do this).  It does have  
some rough edges and is under constant development, but despite this  
it has become the tool I always try first for almost any project...

	Best,

	Nathan