Re: [Maxima-discuss] Who is maintaining the emacs lisp code, e.g. dbl.el?

[Richard F. <fa...@be...>]

On 9/7/2017 11:08 PM, Rocky Bernstein wrote:
>
> Current Emacs practice would be to distribute such code via ELPA or 
> MELPA .

I use Maxima and emacs.  I have never heard of elpa or melpa, and 
neither does
my emacs.  It appears that it requires emacs 24.1.  It appears that I am 
using 23.1.1.
The latest emacs version is 25.2

I suggest that there continue to be an emacs-lisp component in the 
Maxima distribution.
Perhaps it should just link to the elpa etc code somewhere else? Or if 
elpa requires
a newer emacs than the one in use, it should say so.  Or perhaps the 
Maxima distribution
should include the maxima-macros, updated, so that someone without internet
access could use this; perhaps with an informative message about the latest
code being elsewhere.

I am personally very much in favor of having Maxima or other programs that
I use have self-contained download-and-install packages.

When I find that accessing/downloading a program I am instructed to
install a sequence of packages (perhaps uninstalling previous versions),
disable security safeguards, occasionally rebooting, ... I am discouraged
because I know from experience that I can encounter new and disturbing 
opportunities for failures.

So if using some code requires loading (who knows what .. upgrade to 
windows/cygwin??)
upgrade to emacs,  upgrade Maxima?
I would think twice about it.  Do I want to spend several hours
to get back to a working system?

For the person proposing such changes, it would be courteous for
it to be tested and working
100% for all versions of Windows (XP, anyone?) all versions of MAC OS,
all versions of UNIX, all Android OS, etc.  All versions of Lisp, too.

So if there is to be any emacs mode for Maxima, I think it some version 
should
be distributed  with Maxima.  If there is enough space to have multiple 
language
versions of the documentation and two full lisps (clisp, sbcl), and piles
of user-contributed code, this doesn't seem like a space problem.

I do not have a problem if someone wants to put together a version of
Maxima that is automatically loaded into lisp in pieces via ASDF
or something similar.  Or even if Maxima is loaded into emacs via elpa.
Unless it were entirely perfected, I would not suggest it for a newbie.

Summary:  I think there must be an easy download/install for
any software intended for a wide audience.

RJF