Development environment, was RE: more about Maxima + ECL

Richard Fateman wrote:
>  
> I would like a system in which all of Maxima can be read in and run
> interpreted or compiled
> and for which 
> to_lisp();
> 
> (compile-file  <whatever.lisp>)
> (load <whatever.o> )     or    whatever.fasl etc...
> (to-maxima)
> 
> can be used to incorporate any corrections to the whatever.lisp file in the
> system.

I still do this and it still works for me.  But...
> 
> It is apparently the case that the run-time Maxima (GCL/windows) is no
> longer compatible with
> the compile-time environment used to compile Maxima.  
> 
> Unless I am mistaken in this, it appears to be a massive step backward in
> system testing and development; in some sense a retreat from the notion of
> interactive system development starting in the late 1960s  into the 1960's
> batch development model of languages like C and Fortran.  Admittedly this is
> "prettied up" by CVS, make, defsystem.   But still batch.
> 
> Am I mistaken?
> If I am not mistaken, can someone try to explain why this has happened?

I doubt it was intentional.  But there are still bizarre dependencies 
that no one has bothered to figure out or fix.  One issue that has 
bitten me is that when I compile or load some file, suddenly some 
variables are now special.   That's quite annoying.  But this was long 
ago, and my memory is likely faulty.

Ray