ANNOUNCE: GENIUS 0.5.2 the "$\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{n}$" release

[George <jirka 5z com>]

WE HAVE AN ONLINE MANUAL! (It kind of sucks but at least there is one).
Besides the help improvements I really needed to do better modulo arithmetic
for homework, and so this release adds getting inverses modulo N, by just
using rationals.  This means we can even do matrix manipulation modulo N
including getting inverses and powers and multiplication and division and all
that fun stuff (that is, if there are inverses modulo that particular N, else
you will exprience some error messages of course:) Now the modular arithmetic
is still not finalized as I think it's kind of anal about moding everything
before and after each calculation in modulus mode except the second argument
to powers.  I'm not really sure what would be the correct way to work, but I
think this is pretty close, places where it doesn't make sense are probably
not fit for modular arithmetic anyway.

Furthermore there's a couple of new functions and some new better
implementations.  Also of note is that we use VTE instead of ZVT now, so
you need that installed, but if you're using gnome 2 (or 2.2) you're
probably using that anyway because ZVT sucks and VTE sucks less.

Oh and in case anyone missed this before there's a really cool feature
where you can display matrices as latex or troff.  The following short
session should illustrate:

  genius> OutputStyle = "latex"
  = "latex"
  genius> [1,2;3,4]*[5,6;7,8]
  =
  \left[ \begin{array}{rr}
  19 & 22 \\
  43 & 50 \\
  \end{array} \right]
  genius>

Using this for typing homework almost feels like cheating :)

In any case, Genius is one one of the oldest GNOME projects, it has been
the original GNOME calculator before I got wild ideas about it doing
absolutely everything.  It is programmable has a powerful language and
handles many fun features including matlab like support for matrices.
It requires GNOME2 and a recent enough gmp library.  However you can
still use the command line version if you prefer non-gui interface.

There is still a lot of work required to make this all nice, mostly it needs
to have the function library improved and verified to be correct and
documentation needs to be written (the complete help system is not yet in
place).  Feel free to help out :)

Here are the news in 0.5.2:

* UP TO DATE ONLINE MANUAL: well, don't be too excited, it's just a text
  file, but can now be viewed directly from genius.
* Use vte instead of zvt since zvt was giving me fits (vte is on the other
  hand giving me different fits).
* Fix precendence of defining a function (now "function f(x) = foo mod bar"
  will work as expected)
* Using rationals in modular mode will take the inverses mod n
* Negative powers and division of matrixes in modular mode
* Implement IsPrimeProbability, LucasNumber, ModInvert, EulerPhi,
  Subfactorial, GoldenRatio
* Use gmp for NextPrime
* Kill some unimplemented functions so that people don't get confused
* Some function renaming (where old syntax was used) and some more help
  strings
* The help output is now nicer
* In latex output mode we print [] instead of () for matrices since
  I think it's nicer
* The readline helper is now in the libexec directory as it should be
* Fixup the plugin API a bit and hide the test plugin from the GUI
* The .desktop is now updated, using intltool and installed in proper new
  location and all that good stuff
* Fixed the gettext/intltool stuff, now actually installs translations
  correctly and all that
* Random minor fixes and cleanup

http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/genius/0.5/
ftp://ftp.5z.com/pub/genius/

(Note that at the 5z.com site there are also some RPMS for RH8.0, Note that
on RH8 the menuitem is in Extras/Other, also note that the .spec file in the
archive is broken, so please use the rpm provided ... this will be fixed in
the next version, it's basically missing the libexec dir which is kind
of important for the GUI version but I didn't notice it soon enough)

Have fun,

George


-- 
George <jirka 5z com>
   Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
                       -- Napoleon Bonaparte