some editing tools for maxima /Grumpy old man..

Hi,

I build maxima with clisp on windows as is described in README.lisp. I
can compile maxima without any additional tools - just clisp. Plotting
and help work with a little extra work.

If you download gnuplot and put it somwhere in you path plotting
should work even in Allegro. That is better than writing your own
plotting routine just for Allegro and just for Windows.

Also help using info should work. Either copy the info files from
official maxima distribution to doc/info or download makeinfo from
gnuwin32.sf.net and compile maxima.texi.

HTH,
Andrej

> Actually, I have built maxima 5.10 on windows (and I expect I can do so
> again on solaris) without make or perl, just defsystem and the appropriate
> files, and using a lisp system (Allegro) which is only slightly supported by
> the sourceforge files.  Arguably those "appropriate files" could be produced
> via make,  but they aren't.  Problem: I don't know enough about gnuplot etc
> to make them or link them in to the allegro lisp.
>
> Writing a plotting routine entirely in Lisp is easily possible if you are
> first allowed to choose a particular lisp and a particular operating system.
> There is no standardization of the graphics interface. Thus from Allegro I
> can use "rdnzl" and .net on windows.  Or "common graphics" or "GTK". But the
> code I write may not run on other systems. So the problem is, in some sense,
> not the writing of code in lisp, but the requirements of portability to all
> possible lisps.  While I try to write standard code when possible, I don't
> find the task of testing on N lisps personally fulfilling :)
>
> I am all in favor pre-built simple-to-download installers for xmaxima and
> wxmaxima etc. Without them, I suspect the maxima user community would be 2
> orders of magnitude smaller.
>
> Thanks
>
> RJF
>
>
>
>
> >
> > emacs, wxmaxima and xmaxima can be viewed as 3 alternate interfaces for
> > Maxima, but xmaxima has also another task: if you want to plot graphs,
> > I do not think we have a lisp-only alternative at this point. You
> > either install gnuplot, or xmaxima. And there are some plots (plotdf)
> > that cannot be made with gnuplot. That's what keeps me working on
> > Xmaxima.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Jaime
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Maxima mailing list
> Maxima at math.utexas.edu
> http://www.math.utexas.edu/mailman/listinfo/maxima
>