25 years later: Bill Schelter and the resilience of Maxima

--===============5603481041096438994==
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="00000000000093450b0657cd15c4"

--00000000000093450b0657cd15c4
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

Hi everyone,

Today, July 30th, marks exactly 25 years since William Schelter passed
away. Even though I never knew him (I was 16 years old back then and the
only CAS I knew was "Derive" from our Calculus class), his name has
appeared on my screen countless times when starting Maxima or GCL.

I was recently browsing the mailing list archives from August 2001 (
https://maxima.sourceforge.io/ext/list_archives/2001/index.html), right
around the time the sad news broke. People were obviously very unsure about
the future of Maxima. Reading that with 25 years of hindsight feels surreal.

I found it especially funny to read a message from Camm Maguire stating he
didn't know much about Lisp. Fast forward to today, and he's been the one
steering GCL through two and a half decades, not only maintaining it, but
making it (almost) ANSI-compliant and a real competitor to SBCL when it
comes to the performance of the generated code.

Also, think about the hardware evolution that Macsyma/Maxima's code has
survived. Macsyma started out on room-sized PDP-10 mainframes. Today, we
can compile the code to WebAssembly and run Maxima natively in a web
browser on a mobile device that has 10,000x the memory, 100,000x the
computational power and weighs not several tons, but 200 grams.

There's also the irony regarding Artificial Intelligence. Lisp was
originally thought to be the language for AI. The big recent breakthroughs
with LLMs didn't happen in Lisp at all, but rather in Python and C++. But
things have come full circle: We now have these modern AI tools helping us
debug and optimize the ancient Lisp codebase, often finding bugs dating
back to Macsyma.

I sent my first message to this list in October 2012, asking something
about my method of repeatedly applying various simplification functions.
Since then, as I've spent more time digging into the core to fix bugs and
improve performance, I've really come to appreciate the culture here. This
list is friendly, honest, professional and helpful.

A big Thanks to the veterans and everyone who kept the engine running after
2001, be it by helping users and developers, reporting bugs, fixing them,
refactoring code or making Maxima more usable, accessible and powerful in
general and in specific areas. I think Bill Schelter would be very proud of
the state of Maxima and its community today. Glad to be a part of this crew
and give something back to a project that has been hugely important for my
professional career.

I can't imagine what the world will be like in another 25 years, given how
fast things are moving right now.

Best regards,
David Scherfgen

--00000000000093450b0657cd15c4
Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<div dir=3D"auto">Hi everyone,<div dir=3D"auto"><br><div dir=3D"auto">Today=
, July 30th, marks exactly 25 years since William Schelter passed away. Eve=
n though I never knew him (I was 16 years old back then and the only CAS I =
knew was &quot;Derive&quot; from our Calculus class), his name has appeared=
 on my screen countless times when starting Maxima or GCL.</div><div dir=3D=
"auto"><br></div><div dir=3D"auto">I was recently browsing the mailing list=
 archives from August 2001 (<a href=3D"https://maxima.sourceforge.io/ext/li=
st_archives/2001/index.html">https://maxima.sourceforge.io/ext/list_archive=
s/2001/index.html</a>), right around the time the sad news broke. People we=
re obviously very unsure about the future of Maxima. Reading that with 25 y=
ears of hindsight feels surreal.</div><div dir=3D"auto"><br></div><div dir=
=3D"auto">I found it especially funny to read a message from Camm Maguire s=
tating he didn&#39;t know much about Lisp. Fast forward to today, and he&#3=
9;s been the one steering GCL through two and a half decades, not only main=
taining it, but making it (almost) ANSI-compliant and a real competitor to =
SBCL when it comes to the performance of the generated code.</div><div dir=
=3D"auto"><br></div><div dir=3D"auto">Also, think about the hardware evolut=
ion that Macsyma/Maxima&#39;s code has survived. Macsyma started out on roo=
m-sized PDP-10 mainframes. Today, we can compile the code to WebAssembly an=
d run Maxima natively in a web browser on a mobile device that has 10,000x =
the memory, 100,000x the computational power and weighs not several tons, b=
ut 200 grams.</div><div dir=3D"auto"><br></div><div dir=3D"auto">There&#39;=
s also the irony regarding Artificial Intelligence. Lisp was originally tho=
ught to be the language for AI. The big recent breakthroughs with LLMs didn=
&#39;t happen in Lisp at all, but rather in Python and C++. But things have=
 come full circle: We now have these modern AI tools helping us debug and o=
ptimize the ancient Lisp codebase, often finding bugs dating back to Macsym=
a.</div><div dir=3D"auto"><br></div><div dir=3D"auto">I sent my first messa=
ge to this list in October 2012, asking something about my method of repeat=
edly applying various simplification functions. Since then, as I&#39;ve spe=
nt more time digging into the core to fix bugs and improve performance, I&#=
39;ve really come to appreciate the culture here. This list is friendly, ho=
nest, professional and helpful.</div><div dir=3D"auto"><br></div><div dir=
=3D"auto">A big Thanks to the veterans and everyone who kept the engine run=
ning after 2001, be it by helping users and developers, reporting bugs, fix=
ing them, refactoring code or making Maxima more usable, accessible and pow=
erful in general and in specific areas. I think Bill Schelter would be very=
 proud of the state of Maxima and its community today. Glad to be a part of=
 this crew and give something back to a project that has been hugely import=
ant for my professional career.</div><div dir=3D"auto"><br></div><div dir=
=3D"auto">I can&#39;t imagine what the world will be like in another 25 yea=
rs, given how fast things are moving right now.</div><div dir=3D"auto"><br>=
</div><div dir=3D"auto">Best regards,</div><div dir=3D"auto">David Scherfge=
n</div></div></div>

--00000000000093450b0657cd15c4--


--===============5603481041096438994==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline


--===============5603481041096438994==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

_______________________________________________
Maxima-discuss mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/maxima-discuss

--===============5603481041096438994==--