On Apr 21, 11:48 pm, Robert Dodier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Apr 20, 5:55 pm, mabshoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi Robert,
> dortmund.de> wrote:
> > I forgot one important argument here: With ecls you can embed the lisp
> > interpreter into an external library, hence we would be able to use
> > Maxima as a library instead of using the inefficient pexpect
> > interface. I am not sure how much work this would be, but if I were a
> > Maxima coder I would certainly look into that possibility since it
> > opens a whole lot of possibilities for Maxima IMHO - totally
> > independent of Maxima's role in Sage.
>
> Aside from just getting stuff linked together (plenty of trouble
> to start with),
Sure, that is an issue, but you can't fail if you don't try ;)
> the more difficult problem is that Maxima is written
> with a pervasive assumption that there is someone at the console,
> e.g you ask for an integral or a limit and Maxima comes back with
> a question about some parameter. That make interaction with
> another program very difficult (as I think you know already).
Yes, I never had to deal with it via the pexpect interface in Sage,
but others certainly have.
> I have attempted to resolve this by converting questions into
> conditional expressions e.g. "Is x positive, negative, or zero?"
> => if x > 0 then ... elseif x < 0 then ... else ....
> It sort of works but there are difficulties. If anyone wants to
> work on it with me, I'd be glad to have the help.
I cannot pledge anybody else's time here and I don't see any time for
myself opening up soon to work on this end of the problem. But I read
your message on fricas-devel about ecls support for Maxima and I am
certainly willing to help make that happen and test ecls build and
building Maxima on top of ecls on a wide range of platforms. I am also
willing to work on ecls itself and fix potential portability issues.
On top of that once ecls+Maxima "works" I will also likely lead the
push to get that combo merged into Sage. There are some other issues
you mention in your email to fricas-devel, but I will answer them over
there.
> Robert Dodier
> Maxima developer
Cheers,
Michael
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