CoCoA
  Computing in Commutative Algebra  



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Some historical notes

1987:  Start of two small projects due to A. Giovini and G. Niesi.
1988-1993:  First release of CoCoA developed by A. Giovini and G. Niesi in Pascal language. Initially the system was running only on Macintosh. Then it was ported to PC's by E. Armando who did some work on a second release of the system.
1993:  Start the current project: CoCoA 3.
1995:  First distributed release (3.0b) at the COCOA IV Meeting Genova.
1996:  CoCoA 3.02b.
1997:  CoCoA 3.3. Main new features:
  • interactive Gröbner framework;
  • new algorithms for minimal free resolutions;
  • packages;
  • new I/O management (devices).

    Started mirroring of CoCoA at Regensburg (Germany).

    • March 1998:  CoCoA 3.4. Main new features:
  • ring maps;
  • improvement of CoCoAL language;
  • univariate factorization over Z;
  • computation of toric ideals;
  • online help.

    Started mirroring of CoCoA at Reed College, Portland, Oregon (US).

    • July 1998:  CoCoA 3.5. Main new features:
  • improvement of CoCoAL language;
  • new memory management (simpler way to access variables of different rings);
  • autoloading and autoinitializing of packages;
  • univariate factorization over Z, Q, and Z/pZ for p prime;
  • an updated online help system and an html manual;
  • new packages from contributors (integer programming, special varieties, radical).
    • December 1998:  CoCoA 3.6. Main new features:
  • a new package for computations with ideals of points;
  • faster computation of Hilbert functions and Poincare series (the POINCARE panel is now unnecessary and so has been disabled);
  • a new version of the package for computing radicals of ideals (which now works in greater generality);
  • the possibility to have a system-wide Unix/Linux installation.
    • June 1999:  CoCoA 3.7. Main new features:
  • Multivariate factorization over the integers;
  • utility functions for modules/vectors (IsTerm, LM, LPP, LPos, Monomials/IsToPos..);
  • faster computation of operations on ideals (intersections, saturations,...);
  • faster computation of the determinant of matrices with integer entries
  • new packages from contributors (algmorph, galois).
    • Please send comments or suggestions to cocoa@dima.unige.it
    Last Update: 9 July 1999.