RE: [Axiom-developer] windows port

[Page, Bill]

Michel,

I agree with you. wxwindows is a cross-platform gui
solution and there are several of these that we could
choose *if* (when?) we get involved in writing or re-
writing graphical interfaces for Axiom. (For example,
TeXmacs has this specific problem at the moment between
Linux, Windows and MacIntosh versions.)

The operative word is *if* because in many ways I think
it would be best if we could concentrate our efforts on
the mathematical algorithm and documentation side of the
effort and depend on integration of other open source
packages for the user and development interfaces. I think
this is important because for the last several years I
have argued strongly for example with the Maple developers
that they have spent way to many resources developing user
interfaces (with only moderate success at best) at the
expense of mathematical advances (which I have to admit
has still advanced somewhat in spite of the diversion of
resources). For Maplesoft, the decision of concentrate
on gui development is mostly driven by marketing
considerations. But one of the advantages of open source
development, it seems to me, is that we need not be driven
by such considerations.

The current difficulties with the Axiom port to Windows
however are not of this kind. They are actually only
relatively minor compatibility problems with the original
"extras" C code that extends GCL (such as the socket io and
file system operations). The best way to resolve this I think
is to get rid of this extra C code in favour of the
functionality that is now built to GCL. But this involves
some deeper analysis of the spad and Lisp/Boot code than
either Tim or I have had time for yet.

Regards,
Bill Page.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden
> [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 7:56 AM
> To: address@hidden
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [Axiom-developer] windows port
> 
> 
> Hello Tim,
> 
> > Bill,
> > 
> > check out www.wxwindows.org
> > 
> > I've been looking at the windows port a bit more.
> > Except for the fact that it is C++ (I just spent a month
> > rewriting Magnus, my other computer algebra system which
> > is in C++) it looks like it might be useful.
> 
> My understanding of wxWindows is that it is mainly a library 
> to build guis usable under various OSes (Linux, Windows and
> Mac). So it could be useful for the future, if you want to
> build interfaces for Axiom, or maybe to port Advi under
> multiple OSes, but I wonder if it is really useful right 
> now, just to compile Axiom on Windows ?  I would say it is
> more like Tcl/Tk or Python/Tk? But I maybe wrong, it's a long
> time since I looked at wxWindows and discussed with Julian
> Smart.
> 
> Best wishes
> address@hidden
> http://www.univ-orleans.fr/EXT/ASTEX
> ftp://ftp.univ-orleans.fr/pub/tex/PC/AsTeX
> liste de discussion: address@hidden
> Abonnement à la liste: envoyer un message de contenu
> "sub astex Nom Prenom Etablissement" à address@hidden
>