Maxima requires python but doesn't check nor report its abscence

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Aleksej Saushev <asau at inbox.ru> wrote:

> In a number of environments (pkgsrc anywhere, starting on NetBSD and
> DragonFly, ending on AIX) there's no "python" program, it is usually
> called "python24", "python25", "python26" and so on. Maxima silently
> calls "python" deep inside, but it doesn't check its presense at
> configure stage, hence no warnings when it can't find python nor hooks
> to help finding proper binary. Could this be changed somehow?

Thanks for the patch, I'll apply it.

The reasoning about Python is that it is not needed by someone
who is building from a tarball, because the documents generated
from Texinfo (including the category stuff) are included in the tarball.
So the absence of Python could prevent building Maxima even
though it is not needed.

If you'd like to argument otherwise, go ahead, and if you have
a patch for configure.in, I'm willing to consider it. (Or maybe you
can convince someone else to commit it.)

Thanks for your help,

Robert Dodier