Contributing to Emacs Calc Documentation and improving the Integration Algorithm

Contributing to Emacs Calc Documentation and improving the Integration Algorithm

[siraben]

Apologies for not having a subject line initially, the message is
repeated below.

I'm new to contributing, so I was wondering if this is a viable
project to get started on.

I've noticed that development on the Emacs Calc has stalled
recently. /lisp/calc shows no commits since January 1 2018, which was
a copyright year update. I would like to contribute documentation to
many of the undocumented functions, and work on the symbolic
integration algorithm which, despite its complexity, still has great
difficulty with integration by parts and by substitution.

Thanks,

Ben Phipathananunth

Re: Contributing to Emacs Calc Documentation and improving the Integration Algorithm

[Joshua Branson]

Hello,

I'm not a contribute, but you probably need to get your copyright
assignment in before Emacs can accept any code contributions.
Definitely try get your copyright assigned to the FSF while you start
making changes (it can take a while to get your copyright assigned to
the FSF).

siraben@disroot.org writes:


> Apologies for not having a subject line initially, the message is
> repeated below.
>
> I'm new to contributing, so I was wondering if this is a viable
> project to get started on.
>
> I've noticed that development on the Emacs Calc has stalled
> recently. /lisp/calc shows no commits since January 1 2018, which was
> a copyright year update. I would like to contribute documentation to
> many of the undocumented functions, and work on the symbolic
> integration algorithm which, despite its complexity, still has great
> difficulty with integration by parts and by substitution.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ben Phipathananunth

Re: Contributing to Emacs Calc Documentation and improving the Integration Algorithm

[Randal L. Schwartz]

>>>>> "siraben" == siraben  <siraben@disroot.org> writes:

siraben> I've noticed that development on the Emacs Calc has stalled
siraben> recently. /lisp/calc shows no commits since January 1 2018, which was
siraben> a copyright year update. I would like to contribute documentation to
siraben> many of the undocumented functions, and work on the symbolic
siraben> integration algorithm which, despite its complexity, still has great
siraben> difficulty with integration by parts and by substitution.

It would be great to get calc better, stronger, faster.  I was around
during the early development (my name's even in the docs for a couple of
things), but it seems not to have gotten a lot of attention lately.

If you need a second pair of eyes on the doc changes, I'm happy to help.

-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/Dart consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
Still trying to think of something clever for the fourth line of this .sig

Re: Contributing to Emacs Calc Documentation and improving the Integration Algorithm

[Stefan Monnier]

> It would be great to get calc better, stronger, faster.  I was around
> during the early development (my name's even in the docs for a couple of
> things), but it seems not to have gotten a lot of attention lately.

Indeed, Jay Belanger <jay.p.belanger@gmail.com> did a good job
maintaining it for several years, but since then he moved to SXEmacs
(IIUC in part because of its support for bignums), leaving our Calc
maintainerless.  Maybe it would be worthwhile to try and see how we
could sync the changes he's made to SXEmacs's Calc (might require moving
ahead with the addition of bignums to Emacs, which would be a good idea
in any case).


        Stefan