Hi!
> If somebody is looking for a mostly non-mathematical project,
> one possibility is to improve 'describe.' What I'm thinking
> about is something like:
I wonder, whether anybody is still using 'describe' and why... It
seems to have some major disadvantages:
It is old fashioned and user unfriendly - you observed this yourself.
Its output tears the current session apart.
It's not really a functional programming task to spit fragments of
info documents against the user.
The majority of maxima users probably accesses it through some
user interface. Obviously it is best for the interface to provide
its own means to read documentation, because it knows what suits
its environment (GUI, Text, Webinterface, etc) best.
I myself usually start maxima from the shell, but I do so using
screen. In one windows runs maxima and in the other 'info' ...
Though I don't think 'info' is the best help system in the
world it sure is much better than anything maxima could provide
on it's own (with reasonable effort).
In short my point is: There are lots of help systems out there,
with different aims and for various environments. Why reinvent the
wheel instead of using one - or some - of them. If we are
unsatisfied with what they provide we could still contribute to them.
Actually this would be both: easier and more valuable than improving
'describe'.
Besides, I guess it is unlikely that anyone looking for a non
mathematical task is willing to touch 'describe'.
Regards,
Harald