Re: Requesting input on some possible low-level changes

James Amundson <amundson@users.sourceforge.net> writes:

> While I was at the Metz meeting I had a conversation with Joris van der
> Hoeven about the interface between TeXmacs and Maxima. The
> maxima-texmacs interface is fragile -- there are many ways to get the
> interface to hang. I am sorry to say that the problem really is Maxima's
> fault.

FWIW, I don't think the current Maxima output is _that_ difficult to
process.  The filter in Imaxima is only ~35 lines, and I think it
avoids all the hangs.

But a more uniform and robust format would be great, of course.

> 3) Input from the info routines, e.g.,
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> (C3) ? ask
>
>  0: ASKEXP :(maxima.info)Definitions for Simplification.
>  1: ASKINTEGER :Definitions for Simplification.
>  2: ASKSIGN :Definitions for Simplification.
> Enter n, all, none, or multiple choices eg 1 3 :
> --------------------------------------------------

I think using the Info routines is only truly useful when you're
running Maxima in a terminal.  If you're using a windowing system you
can use a real Info reader to look things up -- which is much
friendlier anyway.

So if a front-end doesn't want to deal with the Info routines it could
just disable them and supply some GUI widget to fire up an Info reader
of choice.

> 4) Other inputs under Maxima control, including the Maxima
> debugger. I'm not sure how many such routines there are. Anyone?

There's also `entermatrix'.

-- 
Cheers,
Jesper Harder