[Maxima] Runtime determination of share directories?

[Robert Dodier]

On 1/22/09, Raymond Toy <toy.raymond at gmail.com> wrote:

>  Wouldn't it be nicer if we could do this at startup and just find all of
>  the directories in share directory?  Then we wouldn't have to maintain
>  this list at all, and users can easily add share packages themselves and
>  have them automatically available.  (Well, perhaps we could keep a few
>  of the core share packages in the list, but most would be determined at
>  runtime).

Yes, that's a good idea. Have at it!

>  I played with this a while back, but never finished it.  I think,
>  however, that all of the lisps we support can do this using the Lisp
>  DIRECTORY function with a bit of extra glue to return the right stuff.
>  GCL might be a bit more difficult, but I think it can be done there too.

I believe it is within the realm of possibility that we might stop
working around GCL's idiosyncrasies.

I think it would be worth the time to compare Maxima + ECL against
Maxma + GCL on various platforms, considering ECL as a possible
replacement for GCL. If someone wants to do that & report to the
mailing list, that would be terrific.

FWIW

Robert Dodier