a9104910@unet.univie.ac.at wrote:
> Hi folks!
.....
>
> Goods:
>
> GPL
>
> access to lisp -- what a wonderful language for doing maths! --
> underneath, mathematica, maple don't have this!
>
> doesn't (!) simplify automatically like mathematica does.
Actually, a simplification program, internally, SIMPLIFYA,
is called automatically. Every expression returned is simplified,
unless you set a flag: SIMP:FALSE. Setting this flag is
usually a bad idea.
....
>
> wonderful interface to emacs that makes debugging easy -- Mathematica
> doesn't have this!
There is a mathematica.el interface, actually.
>
> highly portable on every layer (is this correct?)
Not all the code is portable, and the front ends being suggested
are usually not portable.
......
> Why not encourage (ask) Lisp vendors to
> support maxima and gain a nice package for their users. "Support" could
> be: contributing to the building procedure, bug reports, (conditional)
> additions and maintainance to the kernel to make maxima run faster,
> better, etc. with their lisp (no new features!!!)
A potential problem is that a vendor may supply ANSI Common Lisp code,
and then we discover that one of the free lisps cannot run it. Should
the vendor have to verify that its changes also run under GCL and CLISP?
The cooperation must be clear.
>
> I think it is very important to keep maxima running with as many FREE or
> GPL lisps as possible (especially with gcl, because I like the idea of
> maxima --> lisp --> c!) which probably means to make it as common lisp as
> possible.
I suspect that the free lisps are less likely to be ANSI standard than
the commercial ones; in any case there are a number of very important
issues -- like building a dumped system -- that are not standardized.
Of course using the standard when it works is a good idea. Also I think
it should be possible to isolate the non-standard parts to a very few
files (this is the case now, but it might be possible to even improve
that.)
RJF