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<Chapter Label="Preface">
<Heading>Preface</Heading>

Welcome to &GAP;. This preface serves not only to introduce this
manual, <Q>the &GAP; Tutorial</Q>, but also as an introduction to the
system as a whole.
<P/>
&GAP; stands  for  <E>Groups, Algorithms  and Programming</E>.  The  name was
chosen to reflect  the aim of  the  system, which  is introduced in  this
tutorial manual.  Since  that  choice,  the  system has become   somewhat
broader,    and  you will  also   find information   about algorithms and
programming  for other   algebraic structures,   such as semigroups   and
algebras.
<P/>
In addition to this manual, there are <E>&GAP; Reference Manual</E>
<Alt Only="HTML">(see <Ref BookName="ref" Label="Preface"/>)</Alt>
containing detailed documentation of the mathematical functionality of &GAP;,
and
<E>HPC-GAP Reference Manual</E>
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<Alt Only="HTML">(see <Ref BookName="hpc" Label="Tasks"/>)</Alt>
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documenting a multi-threaded version of GAP.
<P/>

There is also a document <F>CHANGES.md</F> in the root directory on the
most essential changes from previous &GAP; releases.

A lot of the functionality of the system and a number of
contributed extensions are provided as <Q>&GAP; packages</Q>
and each of these has its own manual.
<P/>
Subsequent sections of this preface explain the structure of the
system and list sources of further information about &GAP;.
<P/>

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<Section Label="The GAP System">
<Heading>The &GAP; System</Heading>
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</Chapter>
