Maintainability and Documentation (Was: Reply: A few modest proposals for maxima maintinability)

>>>>> "CY" == C Y <smustudent1@yahoo.com> writes:

    CY> One possible concern I have is that if the code can't
    CY> stand fixing such as that, it might be hard to improve
    CY> and maintain it.  Wouldn't we want the code robust
    CY> enough to be able to handle minor cleanups?   For

I don't think anyone is saying don't fix broken things.  Just be
cautious because no one really knows all of the implications.
Or as Richard says, create a new file if you really want to make lots
of changes.  Like sum and nusum.

    CY> release (5.6, I think?) and begin to do a big
    CY> documentation effort - user manuals, annotated
    CY> examples for all types of problems, general
    CY> introductions into the how and why of Lisp and Maxima,
    CY> detailed descriptions of how the guts of maxima work
    CY> and which files do what and how, etc.  It will force
    CY> us to figure out what's going on, keep us out of the
    CY> hair of those who know what's going on internally, and
    CY> be useful at the same time.  I know there are a few
    CY> documentation people out there - should we try to
    CY> organize ourselves and make a good stab at this?

If you can get people willing to do this, I think that would be
fantastic!

    CY> Also, did we decide on any uses of the sourceforge
    CY> maxima site?  I kind of get the sense that maybe the

I think that's the biggest question that needs to be answered.  Who is
the "official" maintainer?  Who gets write access to perform commits
on CVS files?

I have no problem if the official site stays where it is or is moved
to some other site.

But we need to decide who can actually commit changes and where they
will be.  Otherwise, we'll be wasting a bunch of time for naught.

Ray