Am I mistaken, or did not earlier versions of many of the programs in
the share libraries have files with .mac extensions and were maxima
code? Now, there is an abundance of .mc files. It will be more difficult
to get any broken programs working if the maxima source code is not
available.
Dick Fell
"Vadim V. Zhytnikov" wrote:
>
> Hello!
>
> I'm trying to make a few steps further in sorting out Maxima
> share directories. Cliff already did quite nice work on it.
> Thank you Cliff !
> But before presenting results in the form of some script I'd to
> discuss several points and ask for some advice.
>
> 1). File extensions. It seems that we already more or less
> implicitly agreed to use following standard extensions
> for Maxima files of various types:
>
> .mac - Maxima source code
> .lisp - Lisp source code
> .dem - Maxima demo files (maxima code)
> .usg - Documentation for packages in share directory
>
> There are some troubles with renaming all files to such scheme.
>
> (a) files in share* mostly have extensions .mc and .lsp and
> sometimes filenames are hardwired in source code. So renaming
> will certainly break something. This is not so important
> at present since directory names (share,share1,2,m etc) are also
> usually hardwired in source code. If we are going to get rid
> of this historical share* scheme and replace it by more logical
> one then some extra work on all share files are required
> in any case.
>
> (b) some packages have several demo files and
> now the are named
> package.dem package.dm1 package.dm2 ...
> I suggest to rename them as follows
> package.dem package_1.dem package_2.dem ...
>
> 2). Many packages have two files
> package.mc and package.lsp
> which are either completely equivalent (both lisp
> code actually) or differ just by two-three lines - usually
> some declarations or assignments in the very beginning
> of file. I'm inclined to remove .lsp and replace it by .mc
> renamed to .lisp.
>
> 3). In many other packages package.lsp is the lisp
> equivalent of maxima source package.mc
> automatically generated by some translator.
> The question is - what is the purpose of these .lsp
> files? Do they have any independent value or can be
> easily re-created? If so I think we have to drop them.
>
> Example: determ or kach package in share1
>
> Richard, could you take a look on them and
> return you verdict.?
>
> In addition a few packages have extra files
> package.LISP and package.UNLISP
> (sometime they have other extensions).
> .LISP also looks like automatically generated
> lisp equivalent of .mc but has a bit different
> structure.
> .UNLISP looks like some log file.
> What are they? Do we need them?
>
> Example: fourie package in share1
>
> 4). Do anyone know exact purpose
> of /demo and /mac directories?
> Is /demo directory for some general demo
> files which do not belong to any package
> in share?
> Is /mac directory intended for core Maxima
> source files which is not lisp but rather maxima?
> It seems that all files in /mac formerly
> belonged to /share* but later were moved
> into /mac.
>
> Any comments are greatly appreciated,
>
> Vadim
>
> --
>
> [ Vadim V. Zhytnikov <vvzhy@mail.ru> <vvzhy@td.lpi.ac.ru> ]
>
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