Re: [Axiom-mail] FW: [Maxima]

[Bob McElrath]

Bill Page address@hidden wrote:
> Bob,
> 
> Thanks for your comments about how to properly implement
> the idea of "external algebra systems". Yes, I suppose
> a lot of this could be made just "pluggable" but on the
> other hand really the duplicated coding is quite short
> and simple. At least based on the current sample of two,
> it is dealing with the particulars of the target system
> that takes up most of the code and I don't see how that
> could really change. Fortunately Python's regexp features
> are quite powerful and easy to use so in any case it is
> only really 10 or 20 lines of specific code.

There are numerous existing problems with ZWiki and LatexWiki that I
know how to trigger with the right code.  In the long run we must move
away from regexes, but this is a long-term project.

> I would really support your idea to do this all in a
> better way if the goal was to immediately support all
> 20 or so of the RosettaStone systems (such as we are
> considering in Tim's "Doyen" project where actually the
> number might be closer to 200 if we included all of the
> Quantian tools). But that is really a different (: and
> hopefully better funded/resourced than the current work :)
> Right now I can only see this progressing in small
> increments, so it is hard to find the time to "really
> do it right"...

Yeah, okay I will do it when I get time.  :)

> So, if/when you get the time and motivation to consolidate
> this in the manner you suggest, then I would certainly
> appreciate it.
> 
> So, back to the Maxima increment:
> 
> 1) How does Maxima do LaTeX? What flavour TeX/LaTeX?

Here is a little on that:

    http://www.hippasus.com/resources/symmath/maximatypeset.html

You can run the code straight, and then append code to typeset it like:
    tex(C1);
    tex(D1);
    tex(C2);
    tex(D2);
where Ci are the commands run and Di are the results generated from the
session.  Attached is a test file like this.

> 2) Can we run a command line interface the same way
> we do in Axiom and Reduce that processes code in chunks
> like this:
> 
>    > setup environment
>    > read file1
>    > read file2
>    > read file3
>    > ...
>    > quit nicely
> 
> 3) What kind of syntactical delimiters can we depend on
> in the output file? For example both Axiom and Reduce
> produce appropriate user input prompts which can be
> used to separate and match the output chunks to input
> chunks.

(C#) and (D#) denote input and output respectively where # is the line
number.

> 4) If someone can run Maxima in a "filter" mode like
> this
> 
>   maxima <inputfile >outputfile
> 
> where the inputfile is structured like in 2) and
> the chunks would be typical of what one might want
> to put in between \begin{maxima} ... \end{maxima},
> then I can take a look at the problem of parsing
> the output.

Note that maxima is free and in debian.  (love debian)  'apt-get install
maxima'.


> Finally, about Reduce and licensing. Yes, it is "non-free".
> Pity. But it is "almost free"... and I hope that we can
> continue to put pressure on the current developers and
> those marketing it, to fully release it as open source.
> I have also repeatedly made the same argument to the Maple
> developers. So far they do not "see the light" but they
> have continued to move in the right direction.

This argument will likely continue for a long time.

But, when bugs are found, we can fix axiom, we cannot fix reduce.  So in
the end it is beneficial to the free systems that are incorporated, and
cannot be beneficial to the non-free systems.  (unless their developers
are paying attention to us)

Cheers,
Bob McElrath [Univ. of California at Davis, Department of Physics]
    
    It is unpatriotic to question the Kleptocracy.

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