[Axiom-developer] Re: [fricas-devel] Re: Installation directory

[Waldek Hebisch]

Martin Rubey wrote:
> 
> Waldek Hebisch <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > The following patch changes installation directory from 
> > $PREFIX/lib/axiom to $PREFIX/lib/fricas and the name of installed
> > binary from $PREFIX/bin/axiom to $PREFIX/bin/fricas.
> > 
> > I think that we should do this change to avoid conflicts with
> > other Axiom flavours.
> 
> Waldek, I think this is not a very good idea.  I think that those who really
> want to install several flavours of axiom in parallel, will find a way to do
> that.
> 
> But for all the others, it just means that incompatibility is increased.  For
> example, axiom.el would have to be customized for no good reason.
> 

Later:
> If it were a single symbol, ok.  But it's not.  What about the wikimedia 
> plugin
> for axiom?  What about the TeXmacs interface?  Do you really want to maintain
>
> axiom.el, fricas.el, openaxiom.el,
> axiom.tm, fricas.tm, openaxiom.tm
> axiom.php, fricas.php, openaxiom.php?

Well, there are two changes.  One is installation directory -- currently
Axiom and FriCAS use _different_ subdirectories of $PREFIX/lib/axiom
subdirectory.  Which means that if you want to get somehing from
installation directory you need to find correct path anyway.  OTOH
installing FriCAS from source will wipe out the entire $PREFIX/lib/axiom
tree -- this is not nice if you have something different here.
Also, when installing from binary packages user may want to delete
delete the whole install tree -- keeping names different reduces
confusion here.   More important, having different installations
directories allows easier creation of non-conflictiong binary
packages.

The drawback changeing name of installation directory is that
different FriCAS versions will be found in different places.  It is
a problem, but a few lines of code could do proper patch seach so
there is really no long term problem.  And if we keep current name
we may expect that at least some binary packagers will change it
(for example current name violates Debian policy) -- so changing
name ourself will minimize confuzion.

Concerning name of user visible "binary" command (the axiom script): 
user (and binary packagers) can choose any name for command, in
particular they can copy the script to a different name or use symlinks.
It is hard to second-guess what users will prefer, so we probably
should give them choice -- I will post a modified (compromise) 
patch on FriCAS list.

-- 
                              Waldek Hebisch
address@hidden