fresh-line (was: Re: [Maxima] Some main loop fixes)

--- "Viktor T. Toth"  wrote:
> > I'm picking up this thread because I am not quite happy about the
> > patch (except for the last hunk)
> 
> Well, I think Jim's answer from January 18 pretty well summarizes how
> I feel about it myself: "I would like to understand exactly what is 
> going on a little better, but Viktor's solution seems to work and 
> life is short." If it is found that the patch breaks more things 
> then it fixes, dump it.

Not that I merit an opinion on this issue, but if Wolfgang's work is
heading towards simplification, unification, and clarity in how this
part of Maxima works (Wolfgang, that was one of the major goals yes?)
then I'm a fan of it. :-)  
 
> > By the way, somebody could please explain why those additional
> > newlines are considered a major problem for Maxima?
> 
> Not a major problem, just an annoyance. Personally, I definitely
> prefer the output without the newlines.

Agreed - not a major problem.  Worth fixing though, because users seem
to desert programs for annoyances almost as much as for substantive
reasons - I suppose annoyances convey an "unfinished" overtone.

> Actually, I have another question in the same vein: Why is it
> necessary for Maxima to be compatible with every LISP compiler out
> there? Just to be clear, I don't mind it (indeed, using different 
> LISPs proved to be quite a good way to catch some subtle errors), 
> I'm just curious. Are there really people out there who can download 
> and install Maxima but not, say, GCL, or is there some other reason 
> why cross-compiler compatibility is necessary? (I have a feeling
> that I'm missing something obvious here that should have hit
> me right in the nose.)

No, not really.  The reason it's a project goal to compile on as many
lisps as possible is it reduces our dependancy on any one of them, in
addition to the testing advantages you already mentioned.  So if a lisp
project should fade away for some reason (not that gcl, clisp, cmucl,
sbcl, etc show any indications of that) we would not be hurting trying
to make it work elsewhere.  On Windows, GCL is still the best
performing default choice with Clisp being the only free alternative
(at least until the sbcl port arrives.)  There are some occasional
performance reasons as well, and some custom things that can sometimes
be done in one lisp but not others (for example, anyone wanting to
explore an McCLIM interface for Maxima would have to do a lot of work
to port it to GCL if that was our only lisp).

So there is no immediate reason, aside from testing and maybe certain
performance critical situations, but it provides a "warm and fuzzy"
feeling knowing we have many alternatives to work with.

CY


		
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