[Maxima-commits] [git] Maxima CAS branch, master, updated. branch-5_31-base-183-gf44d669

Hi there,

I didn't realise the commits were potentially controversial - I would
have asked on the mailing list first if I had. Comments below.

Leo Butler <l_butler at users.sourceforge.net> writes:
>>   On 2013-12-04, Leo Butler <l_butler at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>>   > Rupert, I wonder if you won't reconsider & revert these commits. I
>>   > think they increase the complexity of the display machinery with, at
>>   > most, a small offsetting gain.
>>   >
>>   > You can use the *prompt-prefix* & *prompt-suffix* to achieve what your
>>   > commit notes say motivated the commits. See below.
>>
>>   Well, I see there are 3 related commits. The first (d8dfa0) which
>>   collects prompt formatting into a single function, makes sense to me.

I believe the first commit should be applied regardless of the others,
because it simplifies the maxima code that makes the prompt-prefix and
prompt-suffix machinery work.

>>   I'm leaning against the second (fdcd93) -- as pointed out above,
>>   it seems like the existing machinery could be used toward the same
>>   end.

I intentionally didn't try to use *prompt-prefix* and *prompt-suffix*
here because I know that they are designed for front-ends to "tag" their
prompts easily. Since they are just strings, I couldn't think of a way
to add a note after the prompt without potentially clobbering them. But
maybe I missed something?

Robert/Leo: Can you suggest a way that I could hook in the logic that I
want from the third patch without adding some sort of hook like this?
Obviously, I'm not particularly bothered about exactly how the result is
printed, but I was trying to "engineer it right".

Also, I'm not convinced about the "complexity of the display machinery"
argument. Perhaps Leo refers to the complicated-looking UNWIND-PROTECT
form in my PROMPT-NOTES function? But the point is that, if you want the
user to be able to supply something that does a computation before a
prompt, you need to make sure that it doesn't end up in an infinite
loop... I'm pretty certain that logic would need to appear somewhere
whatever the proposed mechanism.

>>   The third (f44d66) (revised to make use of existing
>>   machinery) seems like it would be suitable for a collection of
>>   solved problems or how-to cookbook -- not sure if it should be in
>>   share.

Fair enough: I don't have any strong feelings about this. Can you
suggest a good place for it to go?

Rupert
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