>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Dodier writes:
Robert> Concerning portability of Maxima to various Lisps,
Robert> Richard Fateman wrote:
>> I think that this goal has been a substantial
>> distraction, but as long as it hasn't required me
>> to do much, I can't really argue.
Robert> I have to say I'm completely in agreement w/ Prof Fateman
Robert> on this point. The existence of multiple incompatible
Robert> versions of Lisp is a historical accident which, for
Robert> reasons beyond my comprehension, has been perpetrated
Robert> indefinitely. This situation doesn't help Maxima at all,
Robert> and the extremely valuable time of some contributors
Robert> is dissipated in resolving arbitrary minor differences.
I don't think multiple Lisps has been a major distraction and it has
been beneficial when things aren't working as expected as Jim has
mentioned.
The people porting or testing maxima on other Lisps and platforms
aren't the ones doing serious development/improvement of maxima. It
seems they're just running maxima on their favorite Lisp, so it's not
much distraction.
In fact, my gut feeling says there isn't a lot of math improvements or
even fixes being applied. (Look at the bug list, especially the large
number of them from Stavros that says /FIX. Many (most?) of the fixes
have not been applied.) So, I don't think porting really changes
anything; the ones doing porting aren't doing math and the ones doing
math aren't porting.
Ray