FAQS/follow-up on solving a set of symbolic equations

Dear Judah,

At first, please accept my sincere congratulations for the
FAQ you prepared on Maxima. This is a very interesting
and useful work.

Many sincere thanks also for your recent message!

I believed that my previous message to Richard would be
shorter and I gave precedence to this reply. Please, accept
my apologies! (I understand that I have been wrong. In fact,
comments about Macsyma Inc. and its owners should be
written in a careful way especially by me in Greece in order
not to cause serious reactions by colleagues or any damage
to the present Maxima project.)

My short replies (although I doubt whether I can add something
important. From your FAQ it is clear that you have a MUCH
MORE detailed view of Maxima and its documentation than me!)

>  "J. Milgram" <milgramjh@nswccd.navy.mil> wrote
> "Nikolaos I. Ioakimidis" <ioakimidis@otenet.gr> wrote
> 
> > For a casual user of Maxima the main sources of documentation
> > presently are
> > 
> > 1. The DOE-Maxima Reference Manual of Michael Clarkson
> 
> Terminology questions:
> 
> Is "Maxima" Identical to "DOE-Maxima" ?
> Or is it a parallel branch of development?

Maxima is based on DOE-Maxima, but it is not identical neither a 
parallel branch of development, since essentially DOE-Maxima
remained unchanged (not developed, essentially bug corrections only) 
since 1982. In fact, the term DOE-Maxima is wrong. (The correct is
DOE-Macsyma as in the original manual by Michael Clarkson.) 
Maxima is an enhancement of DOE-Macsyma by William Schelter
(for about 19 years I think) and now by the present Maxima group
under the direction of James Amundson. (Naturally, I am not
a member of this group, I am just a novice in using Maxima!)

> Is the above-cited DOE-Maxima Reference Manual a replacement for 
> the one at http://maxima.sourceforge.net/referencemanual/maxima_toc.html
> (no author on document but attributed to William Schelter)?

It is not exactly a replacement of the original Maxima Manual 
by William Schelter. In principle, it is a manual having been 
carefully prepared by Michael Clarkson for DOE-Macsyma
in the past and now adapted to Maxima with a change in the
title: DOE-Maxima instead of DOE-Macsyma.  Mike devoted 
much work and effort to this project, he surely deserves our 
congratulations for his contribution, and helped us very much 
with his new manual. Yet, there are points for serious improvement. 
These mainly concern:

(a) Maxima has some differences from DOE-Macsyma because
of the changes by William Schelter to DOE-Macsyma. In my 
opinion, these changes (sometimes restrictions as in graphics) 
have not been incorporated into Mike's DOE-Maxima manual.

(b) This manual (as well as the old manual, but, essentially, which 
one is older?) should be written in a uniform way, standard notation,
instructions and examples for all of the commands. I cannot say this
is now the case. The use of both manuals is not very easy in difficult
situations. (Yesterday, I mentioned the misleading comment in both
of the manuals with respect to the GLOBALSOLVE option variable
for the LINSOLVE command.) 

My (recently expressed) opinion is that a completely new
Reference Manual should be prepared for Maxima itself. 

> Or is it a separate manual for DOE-Maxima?

A difficult question. The naive reply: Both of these manuals are 
based on the same information of the old Macsyma project and
they could be considered (up to some extent of course) as 
collections of the documentations of the commands of Macsyma/
Maxima rather than as independent works. Therefore, in many 
commands (the majority of the commands, but not all) I feel
these manuals offer the same information (frequently exactly the 
same text) to the reader and the same examples too in the cases
where examples are provided (rather rarely). The main difference
between these manuals consists in the quite different organization
of the sets of commands in chapters and, really, the effort by 
Mike is much better as well as the final look of his manual from
the appearance point of view.

> Is the older manual maintained anymore? Should it be listed as "out of
> date but useful"?

I am not sure that it is maintained any more. I feel essentially not.
(I checked now about the ODE command: unfortunately, it is NOT 
maintained.) But, even in this case, when DOE-Macsyma is in 
difference with Maxima (e.g. in graphics), the older manual is that 
offering the more definitive information although its organization 
and appearance are somewhat inferior compared to those in 
Mike's DOE-Maxima Reference Manual. This is due to the fact
that William Schelter incorporated into his older Reference Manual
the changes in Maxima he proceeded (at least in graphics).

Practically speaking, the differences between these manuals for
the experienced user of Maxima are not particularly important. 
I think (I have to check) that some share library commands are 
offered only in the old manual by William Schelter. On the other
hand, the "collections" of commands in chapters in much better
in Mike's recent manual.

These have been my brief comments (without my having consulted
the manuals now). In case you would require more detailed replies,
please, do not hesitate to let me know on the understanding that 
I have not completely read these manuals so far and I am just a 
novice in using Maxima, an amateur (to use a French word).

The above information expresses my present views on the Maxima
Manuals and may include actually incorrect comments. Please, be 
so kind to verify it before any use of it. For a more detailed reply,
I have to compare the manuals, sometimes on a command by
command basis, and I did not find the time now. Yet, in principle,
the basis of these manuals is the same and the text has been 
written (in both of them) mainly by known or unknown contributors
to the Macsyma project perhaps before than more than 20 years
(naturally including the period 1969-1972 and in some cases
reaching the end of the main Macsyma project at MIT at about 
1982).

I would be glad to be of further help to you inside my so restricted
possibilities and knowledge about Maxima and its documentation.

Please, accept again my congratulations with your FAQ. This is
something that had to be done! (In case the URL will remain
stable, I am not sure, I doubt, I will be very glad to put a direct
menu link to your FAQ in my next minor release of the local 
Maxima I distribute in CD-ROM to my students in Civil 
Engineering!)

With many sincere thanks for your message and my best 
regards from Patras,

Nikos