--- jturner <jturner@dynacsmdi.com> wrote:
> Keepers of maxima,
>
> I have been a heavy user of macysma 2.4 for many years. How does the
> current version of maxima compare in terms of ease of use and
> capabilities.
At a guess, I'd say at least several years behind (Note - I have not
used Macsyma 2.4). Essentially we started at 1982 + Schelter's
enhancements. There are a LOT of bugs fixed in Macsyma, and their
interface is much better than our current one. If you have Macsyma 2.4
and are not experiencing severe problem with it, there isn't currently
any reason to switch to Maxima. Someday though :-).
> Why hasn't anyone contacted the old macysma (commercial) group and
> gotten permission to build on the commercial tool that symbolics no
> longer supports?
It was tried, quite some time back. As I understand the situation,
Macsyma Inc.'s assets were sold back to Symbolics, and they are holding
on to the source code but not doing any development. They are selling
Windows Macsyma CDs for something like $500, but you have to know that
because they site doesn't mention it (at least last time I looked it
didn't.) They aren't likely to open up the code, and as they aren't
doing anything with it in a commercial sense either the Maxima project
effectively has to regard that code as lost. Perhaps if Symbolics were
interested in selling we could try a Blender style fundraiser, but I
don't know if they're even interested in selling it, or if they were
what our chances of raising enough $$ would be.
It's a crime to throw all that excellent work away, but with matters as
they stand I don't see too many likely alternatives. With any luck
we'll eventually equal and exceed the commercial Macsyma's abilities,
but it's going to be a long, long road. Really I think what we will
eventually miss most is the database of reported and fixed bugs. Code
would be nice, but knowing what needs fixing is the essential
information.
CY
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