--- Martin RUBEY <rubey@labri.fr> wrote:
> I encountered the following in comp.lang.lisp, maybe we can do
> something
> about it: (at least we should answer)
>
> Martin Rubey <mrstatex@yahoo.de> writes:
>
> > Fred Gilham <gilham@snapdragon.csl.sri.com> writes:
> >
> > > I admit to being a bit dismayed by some of the directions the
> people
> > > working on Maxima took. But the big advantage of free software
> is
> > > that one could always start a branch.... :-)
> >
> > Could you give some details. Since I do some maxima stuff, I'd be
> interested!
>
> First of all, the Maxima install doesn't work under FreeBSD with CMU
> Lisp. Something is wrong with the two (!) startup scripts used to
> get it running. I submitted a bug report about this a long time ago.
Was this to the sourceforge bug system? Have you tested it with the
latest 5.9.0 release? If it's still there I think this is something we
should try to fix - contrary to popular belief BSD is not yet dead ;-).
> Running it without the startup scripts works, but doesn't set all the
> environment variables that need to be set.
Is the FreeBSD shell significantly different from the unix shell?
> Xmaxima kills my X server.
Oh no, that bug again. What version of Tk/Tcl are you using? Is this
5.9.0 or an older version?
> These problems seem associated with the non-lisp stuff. More
> non-lisp stuff seems to have been added over time.
Xmaxima was the work of Bill Schelter originally. There has been some
recent work on it, but I'm afraid it still has a lot of rough edges.
> I guess that's what I mean. More non-lisp infrastructure keeps
> getting added to Maxima and it hasn't helped it to be more reliable
> from where I sit.
That's a fair statement, I think. You might try emacs mode if Xmaxima
doesn't cut it for you - the emacs mode is (IMHO anyway) the best
interface we have currently.
The long term schedule does include an item to impliment a completely
new GUI. (The method/toolkit debate is scheduled for after 6.0 is
released, which is a ways off.) Personally I hope we can use a native
lisp toolkit (hence my interest in Garnet :-) and ultimately of course
people can write as many interfaces in as many toolkits as they like,
but the project will have to pick one as a central effort and we will
all rally round that one. Which one it will be though is a group
decision, and is a ways down the road. We had one big discussion about
that early in the history of the project, and it was concluded that the
best thing to do was work on basic stuff first, because the GUI
discussion would be huge and wasn't as critical as good solid
mathematics.
CY
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