Re: [Aimmath-developers] AIM and Maple 9 not good news

[Jon B. <jbr...@wo...>]

Do you or maybe other developers have an idea of how many files this 
will impact? I'll poke around and see what I find.

On Friday, July 25, 2003, at 01:04  AM, Greg Gamble wrote:

> So what is needed then is a shift of all the `LaTeX...`
> commands of AIM to a new package file aim/LaTeX.mpl with functions
> `LaTeX...` becoming `aim/LaTeX...` and all references to these
> functions in the .mpl files and quizzes being similarly changed.
>
> I guess if we did this. Then we could have some conditional text
> checking for whether the maple version was <= 8 and if so make
> all the old `LaTeX...` names synonyms for the new names, to give
> people some breathing space if they have used any `LaTeX...`
> commands in their quizzes (like me).
>
> To try all this out, what version of AIM are you experimenting with
> ... is it the one in develop_2_1?

Yes, I believe I am using develop_2_1 with modifications to several of 
the files to get OS X support. I'll commit them once I've got things 
working. Although I think I am the only person in the world whose using 
these files. That's a frightening thing to think about.

I just installed a copy of command line Maple 8 beta for OS X (expires 
at the end of August) and as expected it does not have any issues with 
Maple to LaTeX. I may ask Maplesoft if they can give me a non-beta 
license for Maple 8 CL. For the short term this may be my best option. 
Even though I love working on AiM, I really should be working on things 
that are publishable.

Also, even after switching to Maple 8 CL, some answers are still being 
parsed in reverse (exp and maybe others). I guess one of my OS X system 
functions has an error or something that is tied to answer parsing is 
different on OS X. Do all user inputs get parsed with the same 
function? My passwords and things work. When I enter a course name it 
displays correctly and so I just wonder what is different about the 
parsing of answers?

As an aside, if you follow Gustav's suggestion and keep AiM in a 
directory other than ROOT and don't mess with server.xml, you can run 
multiple versions of AiM against different versions of Maple. So I have 
develop_2_1 running against Maple 9 and I also have an install of 
develop_2_1 running against Maple 8. Not Earth shattering, but 
interesting. Maybe there is a way this could be beneficial. There are 
obvious benefits for development, but I'm not sure how else we might 
make use of this.
________________________________________
The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with facts for which Archimedes 
would have sacrificed his life. (Ernest Renan)

Jon Breitenbucher
The College of Wooster
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Wooster, Ohio 44691

(330)263-2207
jbr...@wo...
http://jbreitenbuch.wooster.edu/~jonb