Re: [Maxima-discuss] Trying to accommodate GCL is keeping us from making progress

[Wolfgang D. <wol...@da...>]

Am 17.10.22 um 18:46 schrieb Robert Dodier:
> At this point I'd like to discontinue support for GCL in Maxima, and
> discourage package maintainers from trying to use it, since that will
> inevitably lead to users reporting non-working features as bugs. Can I
> get anybody on board with that?

Hi,

I compile Maxima every day using 8 different Lisp's - and run the 
testsuite (main and share) with every version:

https://wolfgang.dautermann.at/maxima/nightlybuild/logfile-summary.txt
https://wolfgang.dautermann.at/maxima/nightlybuild/logfile-share-summary.txt

You get all build logs at:
https://wolfgang.dautermann.at/maxima/nightlybuild/

GCL does not look that bad im my 'statistics'.

Maybe - if Camm Maguire reads that list - it would make sense to create 
a real new *release* - 2.6.13 - in the near future, not just 124 
2_6_13pre-versions? Gcl seemms to be actively maintained (although there 
seems to be just one developer for several years, a pity...).



If "code cleanup" (removal of current configure-options, and currently 
working code in the Maxima code base) is the target, maybe the "support" 
for "Scieneer Common Lisp (SCL)" should be removed - it is/was 
commercial software and their website does no longer exist. I changed it 
to their 'archive.org'-Backup some time ago in our Readme (commit 99a91e9).


And maybe too the support for Allegro Common Lisp too - also a 
commercial Lisp, where one could download a free version for NON 
COMMERCIAL PURPOSES only. I assume, that I am the only guy, which 
compiles Maxima using ACL every day...
Most tests - of all tested Lisp compilers - fail with ACL (with the main 
testsuite):
79 tests failed out of 12,805
Much more than other Lisp compilers - 7 failed tests (ABCL) is the second.



And maybe for GCL the current code (code for ./configure-options, ...) 
for GCL should be kept, but we might call it a 'not recommended (or not 
very well tested) compiler'? Or somethin similar?


Other Open source projects - e.g. wxMaxima, where I do some 
contributions in my spare time - are usually just tested with the Gnu 
C++ compiler - well, every compiler which supports C++14 *should* work, 
but not every compiler is tested...

Best regards, Wolfgang