RE: [Axiom-developer] lisp dead code

[Bill Page]

On May 13, 2007 7:34 PM Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>  
> Tim Daly wrote: 
> > ... 
> > The interpreter is gradually moving into bookvol5 and the
> > compiler will eventually move into bookvol6. Hyperdoc is
> > bookvol7 and graphics is bookvol8. What remains after the
> > tree is walked must either contain a new root or dead code.
> > 
> 
> IIRC bookvol5 also contains dead code.  And frankly, concerning
> readability I find bookvol5 worse than rest of the interpreter.
> 

I agree.

Tim's "bookvol5" looked like a bad idea to me 18 months ago

http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/axiom-developer/2005-11/msg00104.html
http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/axiom-developer/2005-10/msg00397.html

and it looks even worse now. The concept of grouping code and
documentation into "book-sized" volumes does not make any sense.
A monolithic linear presentation of the code does not aid an
overall understanding of the system. On the contrary it makes
several things harder to manage and moves the system further
away from the tools that have been developed specifically to
deal with large complicated projects. I am all in favour of
adding more documentation to Axiom and doing it in a literate
style, but I am quite sure that this is not the way to do it.

I am very encouraged however by the work of both Waldek and
Gaby to improve the build process and to improve the long term
maintainability of the Axiom code in it's current form without
the kind re-writing and restructuring in which Tim has been
indulging. And I must repeat again that I am even happier that
they have a strong interest in Boot and have already taken some
steps in the direction that seemed to be the intention of the
original developers - integrating the new boot compiler (shoe).

I would like to see the retrogressive code changes from Boot
to Lisp that Tim introduced in bookvol5 reversed. With the
prospect that Boot can now be fully documented and properly
maintained, if there is any re-writing to be done, then I think
it is in the opposite direction - from Lisp to Boot.

Regards,
Bill Page.