Raymond Toy wrote:
>
> I don't think that running
> on multiple lisps has really slowed down development of maxima in any
> significant way.
In some sense I agree. That is, people developing lisps x,y,z, ... are
not likely to be interested in the content of Maxima that much.
In another sense it has, because someone interested in adding (say)
access to features of Windows, would be discouraged because
that would not be useful to people on other operating systems. Thus
foreign functions are not used because, until they work
(.. the same way..?) on all relevant lisps and operating systems, they
are problematical. They are not problematical for me because
I use only one lisp and one operating system, but they don't get put
into Maxima.
> It certainly detracts a bit, but, really, would those
> people have done other things that they aren't already doing?
Yes, certainly in the way I indicate above.
> Would
> things have been done significantly sooner? I doubt it.
>
Hard to say. One of the things I've used is RDNZL (look it up) for
interfacing with .net.
It works on many lisps including GCL. But only on windows ( that's
where .net lives).
How neat would that be to have in Maxima? Well, check it out and see if
there is anything
of interest to you there. For me, it was speech input to Maxima.
But not nearly compatible with linux.
> If there were a mighty Maxima overlord, then, maybe. But if there were,
> maybe there'd be even fewer people working on maxima. :-)
>
However, compare to the management of Sage, where William Stein holds
that position, I think.
Or the various branches of Axiom.
Management, the final frontier.
RJF