James,
I'm quite happy to leave the decisions about when you would like me to
commission a review up to the developers. I shall wait a couple of weeks
and then email again for more comments.
Our focus will probably be with a view to students using Maxima, and for
using it as a learning and teaching tool, rather than as a research tool.
Chris
On Mon, 27 Sep 2004, James Amundson wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-09-27 at 04:07, Chris Sangwin wrote:
> > I wanted to first thank all the developers for working on and releasing
> > Maxima 5.9.1. There are some improvements which I have been quietly
> > waiting for and which work perfectly. Thank you.
> >
> > In a previous post the issue of a review was mentioned. I have a role in
> > the UK based Learning and Teaching Support Network. We provide a network
> > through which colleagues in HE Maths Stats and OR can share good practice
> > in teaching. (See http://ltsn.mathstore.ac.uk/)
> >
> > One of our major activities is in producing the paper based, and online,
> > newsletter MSOR Connections. (Again see
> > http://mathstore.gla.ac.uk/articles/ )
> >
> > We do carry reviews of software packages, although they are usually
> > commercial since these tend to have more publicity with a major
> > release. There is every reason to carry reviews of well supported open
> > source packages also.
> >
> > I would like to commission a review of Maxima. However, I would be happy
> > to wait for a future release if the developers think this would be
> > better. Any comments please?
>
> It would be great to have a review of Maxima in your newsletter. Whether
> or not you should wait depends on many things. We have a large number of
> identified bugs that I hope can be fixed in the 5.9.3 release. I would
> like to see the next few releases of Maxima appear much more quickly
> than the previous two. However, experience tells me that I should make
> no promises about dates.
>
> If you were to do a review soon would it be possible to have another
> review of a subsequent release? The first review would be valuable
> input.
>
> > Also, which interfaces should be included? eg maxima, xmaxima, TeXMacs
> > interface and so on.
>
> That's a fine question. The answer partially depends on the platform(s)
> in question. On Linux, I think the command-line and TeXMacs interfaces
> are the most compelling. On Windows, Xmaxima should be included.
> Opinions vary greatly on this point.
>
> --Jim
>
>