I need help with xmaxima, particularly on windows

----- Original Message -----
"James Amundson" <amundson@users.sourceforge.net> wrote
To: "Maxima List" <maxima@www.ma.utexas.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 8:26 PM


> The biggest obstacle to releasing maxima 5.9.1 is xmaxima. In 5.9.0,
> maxima and xmaxima were significantly intertwined. I have now modified
> maxima so that xmaxima can interface to it in a significantly simpler
> way, but I am having trouble working out the kinks on the xmaxima side,
> particularly on windows . . .

> One option at this point is to simply dump xmaxima. In 5.9.0 xmaxima was
> the only real way to get a working maxima on windows. Now, however, we
> have a command-line version of maxima that is independent of any
> unix-emulation utilities. Although I would like to see us have a decent
> GUI frontend for maxima in the future, I think the command-line
> application is the best thing we have right now.
>
> If there is some love for xmaxima out there, now would be the time to
> say so.


Dear Jim,
Dear Colleagues,

Please, be so kind to forgive me for this delayed reply. My personal
comments follow:

Presently, I and my students are using XMaxima as an interface to Maxima
and, therefore, I am interested in using XMaxima in the future too. During
the semester having recently finished in Patras, Greece, I have extensively
used Maxima and XMaxima in 18 weekly laboratories and I intend to
continue doing so with 13 weekly laboratories next (spring) semester. A
very large number of exercices (in Applied Mathematics for Civil Engineers)
are based on Maxima. Therefore, I am regretfully obliged to bring to your
and the colleagues' attention that my intention is to continue using XMaxima
with Maxima in the future up to the moment that a new efficient inteface
(both in installing and in using it) appears. Under these circumstances, I
feel
I will not upgrade to Maxima 5.9.1 unless it includes XMaxima and I will
continue distributing Maxima 5.9.0 to my students (the new ones in March!)

In spite of these negative comments (and I sincerely regret for them)
and my inexperience with more complicated installations of Maxima for
Windows, my impression and opinion is that the best solution to this
problem which will make me and almost everybody else very happy
is that Texmacs for Windows (if available now or in the future) be
distributed with Maxima and be used as one Windows interface for
Maxima. I have a very good opinion for Texmacs (although I have
never tried it) and I am looking forward to becoming able in the
future to use it with Windows as an efficient and modern interface
to Maxima.

I know you and several colleagues in the list may have some
reservations on these comments, but on the other hand, other
colleagues, recently Jay and, especially, Valery in this discussion,
are probably favourably considering this possibility after the
expected appearance of  Texmacs for Windows.

I understand that this (to use Texmacs) will be a rather difficult task
for me, but I have the intention to try as soon as I will have Texmacs
available for Windows and installed (automatically) with Maxima
and the time available to modify it towards Greek, etc. (if possible)
as has been already possible for me with XMaxima with the
precious help of Mike Clarkson.

It is really very unfortunate that Mike seems not having now
the necessary time to help with XMaxima in Maxima 5.9.1.

Naturally, if there is some other efficient Windows interface
easy to automatically install and efficiently use with Maxima,
I will be very glad to use it too!

To conclude:

Please, Jim, go on with Maxima 5.9.1 as you suggested above
(leaving out XMaxima if necessary), but, if possible in the future,
please take care to include Texmacs for Windows in the Maxima
distribution under the condition you will receive the proper help
from the colleagues in the Texmacs project. Meanwhile, the
sole alternative for me is not to upgrade to Maxima 5.9.1.
(As far as I am concerned, I cannot be restricted to a command
line version of Maxima for Windows neither oblige the students
to do so. XMaxima offers several advantages to us now!)

Please, Jim, accept again my most sincere thanks for your
devotion to the Maxima project and so hard work on it
together with my promise that I will continue using Maxima
as much as possible in my University tasks here in Patras.

Please, accept again my sincere apologies for this delayed
reply. Please, also forgive me for any incorrect comments
and opinions included in this message.

Many thanks again and best regards from Patras,

Nikos