Contributed code, etc. (was [Maxima] Teaching differential equations with Maxima)

--- James Amundson <amundson@fnal.gov> wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-02-22 at 17:43, C Y wrote:
> > --- James Amundson <amundson@fnal.gov> wrote:
> > > Instead of responding to various messages in this thread
> > > individually,
> > > I've created one large response to various issues raised in it:
> > > 
> > > 1) I am very happy to have people seek out existing
> > > Macsyma/Maxima-related code. We have not yet fixed up the
> packages in
> > > the share directory, however, so it does not yet make sense to
> seek
> > > out new code for its own sake. Even so, seeking out code that
> someone
> > 
> > > has a particular interest in always makes sense.
> > 
> > Hmm.  I guess I sort of disagree, primarily because as people
> > retire/technology ages it will get harder and harder to locate such
> > code.  Plus, at least in my case, I don't know what is/was out
> there. 
> > But, I see your point.  OK.
> 
> I guess I really wanted to say that I didn't want to spend time
> seeking out code without good reason. You give a good reason. Please 
> don't let me deter you from your efforts.

OK, thanks Jim.  Would it be OK to put a post in sci.math.symbolic
asking people who are interested in donating their code to contact me?

> As long as we have the rights to redistribute them, I have no problem
> with adding them to share/contrib. We should also add some
> documentation about the unsupported nature of share/contrib.

Sounds good.

> If we (you) end up with a large amount of code, we should consider
> putting it in a separate module.

I'd be surprised, but in that case yes, it would be a good idea.
 
> It all depends on who owns the copyright. I think we have a fair shot
> at DOE Macsyma files that predate 1982, as Richard suggested in a
> previous message.
> 
> I haven't seen any pre-1982 Macsyma files that are not already in
> Maxima. If they are out there, we should find them.

That's another case where an appeal to the sci.math.symbolic and
comp.lang.lisp folks might be in order?

> I think it would be an alternative to the current ODE code. If it
> works well, it should be the first choice, with the current ODE code 
> coming up as a second choice. If the new code proved to be totally 
> superior, we could just dump the old stuff.

That makes sense, and is keeping with Richard's advice to replace code
for sufficiently large changes.

CY

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