Contributed code (Was Re: [Maxima] Teaching)



C Y writes:

> 
>>Yes, yes, you are right. I still prefer a second share directory such
>>as that I proposed previously without bug fixes for the moment. Of
>>course, perhaps Wolfgang could take care of the packages under 
>>question (after a permission of course). A CLEAR distinction between 
>>the tested share code (the old one in Maxima) and that not tested or 
>>tested a little (the new one in Maxima). That's my opinion.
> 
> 
> Someday what I'd like to do is add a unstable or notworking directory
> to the share system, and have all packages start there and move to
> their proper place in the share structure once they have been checked
> out.  Then we could add a toggle USEUNSTABLE to the load mechanism for
> Maxima - if it is set to TRUE, search the unstable directory when a
> load call is made, but if it is FALSE (default) ignore that directory. 
> That discussion is for the future - currently essentially all of share
> is "unstable." No doubt the more skilled people among us will have good
> ideas - but since we wandered onto it here's mine.
> 
> 

I don't quite like the idea of moving files around in share.
Instead I propose something simpler - we need the catalog of
all files in share with short but clear description of
its purpose, capabilities, general limitations and _current_
_state_.  And we have to keep this catalog up to date.
The place to start with is SHARE.USG, actually the
share catalog should supersede SHARE.USG.  I even
tried to do something of the sort a year ago trying
to sort out packages in share.  But I soon realized
that it was too much for the date.

On the other hand we may place some information
about package (STABLE, UNSTABLE, purpose ...) into
each package header.


-- 
      Vadim V. Zhytnikov

       <vvzhy@mail.ru>
      <vvzhy@netorn.ru>