> > normal command recovery - just hit the up-arrow key a few times.
> IIRC when Maxima was originally written computers didn't have that
ability.
Actually, we *did* have a little TECO-like line editor built into MIT
Macsyma, though I don't remember anything about it (notably how to
recall earlier input).
> > > Maxima can pretty-print [the inputs] for you, which helps in
finding
> > > errors sometimes,
> > How? I've tried doing TEX (expression), and then feeding the result
> > into Latex, but it seldom works. Don't know if it's me, or what.
I was actually talking about the native pretty-printer, not the
Tex/Latex output subsystems.
> The question is whether or not there is a better way than C and D
labels.
There are three quite different questions:
1) In the short term, is saving all inputs and outputs (and of course
making them available through some mechanism) worthwhile?
2) Is the current C999/D999 system a good way to do that, or can we make
small changes to make it better (e.g. change the default
inchar/outchar).
3) Long-term are there might be better interaction paradigms we can use.
Right now, we have the label system, we have the mathematical notebook
system, we have emaxima. Can we do better, e.g. symbolic spreadsheet?
or whatever.
> > Which is one reason I've been doing the edit file, then batch thing.
> > Plain Maxima doesn't seem to have any way to save interaction in a
> > readable format,
Actually, it has *three* ways to save interaction in readable format:
a) Human-readable 2-dimensional transcript of display (not
machine-readable): WriteFile command.
b) 1-dimensional display (both human and machine readable): StringOut
command. This does not preserve C/D labels, and normally does not save
D-values. Because of the limitations of Maxima's one-dimensional form,
it also cannot fully represent certain things (e.g. Taylor series,
Poisson series, etc.).
c) internal form: Save command.
I don't think any of these is actually perfect, but....
> xmaxima doesn't seem to have working command-line editing & recovery
It works (with a few glitches) on Maxima 5.9.0 under Windows 2000.