[GAP Forum] manual

[Frank Lübeck]

On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 09:15:55PM +0200, Lisette Brillemans wrote:
> Dear forum-members,
> 
> I wonder if it is possible to obtain a printed reference-manual somehow.
> Of course I could print it myself, but it would cost me more than eur.
> 60,=. Of course a hard-cover printed edition wouldn't cost much less,
> but it would be an "official" book. Does it exist?

Dear Lisette Brillemans, dear Forum,

No, the GAP reference manual is not distributed in a printed version.
It is actually not meant to be printed (and read) as a whole.
Of course, we provide pdf-versions of the manuals. So, if you prefer 
reading parts of the manuals on paper you can use the pdf-versions for 
printouts.
I suggest that you just print what you really want to read in detail, 
maybe some chapters of the tutorial and those chapters (or just their
introductions) of the reference manual you are most interested in.

Note that each update of GAP also contains updates of the documentation,
it is likely that printed versions of the manual will soon become outdated.

Once you are familiar with GAP and its help facilities you might find it
easier and more convenient to find out new things with the GAP help system
in a running GAP session.

> O yes, and, could you, if possible, change my account so that my
> postings (including this and previous ones) no longer will appear in the
> archives and thus on Google?
> I don't want to these messages to be found there.
> 
> I would be very grateful for that!

No, that is not possible. Before you sign in to the GAP forum you see the
link to the archive of previous messages. That makes clear that messages to
the GAP forum are public. If you don't agree to this policy, you cannot post
to the GAP forum. It is useful that the forum is covered by Google (and
others) because some questions arise repeatedly.

BTW: messages to support at gap-system.org are not made public, but you reach
less people who might be able to answer your questions.

> (Else I should make a nickname and post here under that nickname, but I
> more like doing it with my own name.)

It seems to be a convention that people sign in to the GAP forum by their
real names. But we cannot prevent anyone from using a nickname/pseudonym.

With best regards,
   Frank Lübeck


-- 
///  Dr. Frank Lübeck, Lehrstuhl D für Mathematik, Templergraben 64,  ///
\\\                    52062 Aachen, Germany                          \\\
///  E-mail: Frank.Luebeck at Math.RWTH-Aachen.De                        ///
\\\  WWW:    http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de/~Frank.Luebeck/           \\\