James Amundson wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would like to make several proposals for the Maxima project:
>
> 1) We have (a) a project coordinator, (b) a content referee and (c) an
> infrastructure referee. The referees would have final say on what goes
> into CVS, but would not necessarily be the ones doing the work.
>
> 2) I volunteer to be project coordinator and infrastructure referee. I
> am actually doing infrastructure work right now and intend to continue
> to do so. My real interests lie in the content, but I think the current
> infrastructure needs to be improved to the point where it no longer gets
> in the way of the content.
>
> 3) I nominate Richard Fateman to be content referee.
>
> 4) The the next steps in the Maxima project should be as follows:
>
> a) Maxima CVS moves to sourceforge.
>
> b) Call the current version Maxima 5.6 Beta. Incorporate whatever
> hacks/bug fixes people have been sending to the mailing list since
> Schelter passed away. Disallow new features.
>
> c) There is no 5.6 Final release.
>
> d) Incorporate new build system when I am done with it. Clean up
> package. Call the new version Maxima 5.9. The purpose of this release is
> to act as a beta release for the first major release of the new Maxima
> project, 6.0. Focus for 5.9 should be the shift to parity among ANSI
> Common Lisp implementations.
>
> e) Bang on bug fixes in Maxima 5.9 series. Add new tests. Continue to
> disallow new features. Add new Maxima documentation.
>
> f) Release Maxima 6.0 when we are satisfied that it is clean and stable.
>
> g) Create Maxima 6.1 branch for new features. Keep stable 6.0 branch
> with bug fixes only.
>
> h) Attempt to get better publicity for Maxima when it reaches 6.0.
>
> --Jim
>
It seems like a nice plan to me. I'm willing to take part in testing,
cleaning and fixing bugs.
And some proposals about infrastructure.
1) Right now Maxima uses files with so many various extensions
- .dm .dem .dm1 .dm2 .dmt .lsp .lisp .mc .mac - too many!
It is good idea to standardize this better
and reduce the number of file extensions to, say,
.mac .lisp .usg .mac .dem.
2) The directory structure isn't very logical to me as well. Contributed
packages now go into share, share1, share2, sharem, tensor, sym ...
This ought to be reorganized somehow. For example, one
directory share with subdirectories - one subdirectory for each
contributed package or particular application area.
3) Contributed packages should not be installed as source code (.mac .lisp)
but compiled during installation process and finally installed as .o or
.fas
(background lisp dependent).
Vadim
--
[ Vadim V. Zhytnikov <vvzhy@mail.ru> <vvzhy@td.lpi.ac.ru> ]