Friction of Entering New Derivations

First published 2026-03-15

Goal is to enter a novel derivation e.g., Simple Harmonic Oscillator

What's preventing me from entering a derivation right now?

no page should trigger a gunicorn error (which prevents rendering HTML)
pages that do render HTML should not have errors (including flash messages)
- BUG verified 2026-02-16 11:50: on page https://localhost/review_derivation/387954 the validation reports "list index out of range"
- no derivation has all steps valid. There are many errors in the step validation for most derivations
pages that claim a feature but do not enact that feature (e.g., editing a variable or expression or step or infrule or derivation)
pages that lack a necessary feature for the workflow (e.g., editing)
- verified 2026-02-16 11:18 need for missing feature: https://localhost/new_symbol_vector is missing dimensions (length, time, mass)
- New function in compute: List of all non-operation symbols. Used by new feed when promoting existing symbol

See

Associating expressions with step is awkward - looking through the dropdown is tedious
Figuring out whether the expression (or symbol) already exists is difficult
Entering sympy for expression is awkward

Priorities

Infrastructure
- features
- workflow
- bugs
Proof of concept
- any derivation,
- sympy for dimensional consistency of an expression
- sympy for a step,
- lean
Identify top level domains to bridge
- quantum-classical
- classical-thermodynamics
Derivations that bridge two domains
Derivations that bridge within a domain
Named expressions, e.g., Maxwell's equations
Unnamed expressions