[Axiom-developer] interp/Bookvol5 (was: ANSI Lisp?)

[Bill Page]

Tim,

On October 31, 2005 7:05 AM you wrote:

> > 
> > A related topic: I recall you saying that you have once 
> > rewritten all the boot code in lisp? Does this code still
> > exist?
> 
> nope. huge discussion. lots of religion. bad timing and all 
> that rot... so i simply erased it. it's coming back again
> though. look at src/interp/bookvol5.pamphlet in --patch-46

Argggh!!! Bad Tim. Bad Tim.

  Documentation GOOD.
  Rewriting boot into lisp BAD.

Here's the new bookvol5.pamphlet on MathAction:

http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/axiom--test--1/src/interp/Bookvol5

I am glad to see that you have at least retained the original
boot code adjacent to the lisp. In every case I very much prefer
the original boot code to the new lisp code.

As I said earlier several times, I think what you are doing here
is wrong. I wish I could call on the spirits of the Axiom Founding
Developers to help prevent this forking of the Axiom code. So far
open source Axiom has remained very close to the prior commercial
release and also to most of the other versions still "out there".
I think the commercial release still provides a very valuable
baseline against which to measure the open source release. If you
continue to do this kind of re-writing, very soon we will loose
this baseline. And we may lose the input of those people who are
still running these versions.

Of course, sooner or later open source Axiom will have to
"go it's own way". Maybe it already has. But I think we need to
decide the direction very carefully and not simply on the basis
of one person's whim. (Although I must say in spite of this,
I do have great respect for your whim's. :)

Sigh. I know this is nature of open source development - things
will move in the direction the active developer(s) decide. *If*
the changes you are making could possibly result in more people
being able to actively develop and debug axiom, *then* *maybe*
I not feel quite so strongly about this. But so far, I do not see
any evidence of this. The documentation is great, but recoding
things in lisp just seems to be moving the goal posts further
away from me. :(

Regards,
Bill Page.