> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Karl M. Hegbloom)
> Date: 17 May 2000 22:25:14 -0700
>
>
> I believe there is a Maxima package now, either in Woody or in the
> works. I have one installed that I grabbed out of `incoming' one
> day...
Interesting. Does it work well? Here are some problems with the Maxima
I compiled. I wrote a letter to Schetler, but he did not respond :(((
Here is the copy of my letter.
==================================================================
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 13:21:15 -0400
From: Boris Veytsman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: A couple of questions about maxima-5.4
Dear Prof. Schelter:
I just compiled and installed gcl-2.3 and maxima-5.4. They are
great. Many thanks for your great work. It was nice to hear that after
all the year DOE saw the light and allowed the GPL-like distribution
of Maxima code.
I have been using Macsyma from Macsyma, Inc. for several years. I am
glad to see that the free version is very much comparable to the
commercial one.
The graphic capabilities are awesome. The mgnuplot program is very
good: something which I need badly for a long time.
I have a couple of problems and wishlist for enhancements.
I compiled gcl & maxima on a Linux system (glibc-2.1.3, kernel
2.2.14). It compiled fine, and `make test' gave succesfull
results. However, there are still some glitches:
1. The `make install' command does NOT install mactex.lisp and
manual.demo in /usr/local/lib/maxima-5.4, I ought to copy them
manually.
2. The demo command seems to be broken:
---------------------------------------------------------
(C1) demo(array);
batching #/usr/local/lib/maxima-5.4/demo/array.dem
(C2)
(C2) SUBSCRMAP : TRUE
_
(D2) /usr/local/lib/maxima-5.4/demo/array.dem
(C3)
--------------------------------------------------------
It puts me into command line mode again instead of prompting
3. Example command is also broken:
-------------------------------------------------------
(C5) example(romberg);
/usr/local/lib/maxima-5.4/doc/manual.demo:315:Incorrect syntax:
Illegal use of delimiter &&
&&
^
(C6)
-----------------------------------------------------
Now, some enhancements I'd like to see -- if it is possible to
implement.
1. mactex.lisp outtputs plain TeX. Most people nowadays use LaTeX. The
main difference is in fractions -- TeX syntax {a\over b} is taken
over by \frac{a}{b}. Here is a small diff I did to mactex.lisp to
enable this behavior:
3d2
< ;; Changes by Boris Veytsman, May 2000: changedd \over to \frac.
479c478
< ;;(defprop mquotient ("\\over") texsym)
---
> (defprop mquotient ("\\over") texsym)
485c484
< (setq l (tex (cadr x) (append l '("\\frac{")) nil 'mparen 'mparen)
---
> (setq l (tex (cadr x) (append l '("{{")) nil 'mparen 'mparen)
487c486
< r (tex (caddr x) (list "}{") (append '("}")r) 'mparen 'mparen))
---
> r (tex (caddr x) (list "}\\over{") (append '("}}")r) 'mparen 'mparen))
2. Is it possible to enable readline in gcl and maxima? It would be
great to use arrows to edit the command line and use history.
=================================================================
Another question: does the Camms' package include mgnuplot -- a really
cool tcl wrapper for gnuplot? It is included in the upstream Maxima.
--
Good luck
-Boris
http://www.plmsc.psu.edu/~boris/
