Re: [Texmacs-dev] plugins

[Bas Spitters]

http://www.openmath.org/
and
http://www.w3.org/Math/

are trying to solve this problem. With the upcoming 3.0 version these standards are converging. Apparently,
http://www.texmacs.org/tmweb/about/authors.en.html
there is work going on to include this in texmacs ...

Bas

On Wednesday 22 April 2009 12:44:39 Andrea Gamba wrote:
> I think that the possibility to have a common open source interface to
> different mathematical packages is an awesome feature of Texmacs,
> something really unique, but a stronger effort is needed to make it work
> reliably, taking also into account software upgrades, etc.
>
> In principle it would be nice to have some degree of unification, for
> instance one should be able to copy and paste mathematical expressions
> between different mathematical packages.
>
> That would make different mathematical packages interoperable by
> providing a common translation based on texmacs. It would then become
> extremely easy to check for instance with Mathematica a computation
> previously performed with Maple or Axiom.
>
> To achieve that, it would be necessary to provide a precise
> specification of a standard format to describe mathematical expressions,
> to be used both in the input and output of all texmacs plugins. That
> would free users e.g. from the necessity to remember that the same
> integral can be
>
> int(sin(x),x=1..100) in Maple,
> integrate(sin(x),x=1..100) in Axiom,
> integrate(sin(x),x,1,100) in Maxima,
> Integrate[Sin[x],{x,1,100}] in Mathematica,
> etc.
>
> At the moment, it is not even possible to paste back an output as an
> input to the same package. As an example, if I write at the Maple prompt
>
> \frac 2 * \pi (down arrow) 3 (right arrow) (enter)
>
> I get as an output:
>
> 2/3pi
>
> (i.e.: 2/3<space|0.25spc><pi> )
>
> which cannot obviously be fed back to any other plugin, not even to
> Maple itself.
>
> This kind of Maple output (which is the common way fractional factors
> are printed by the plugin) is also quite confusing in practice, because
> it tends to be read as
>
> 2/(3 pi).
>
> With the same input, the Axiom plugin gives
>
> <frac|2|3>p*i
>
> which is quite unsatisfactory.
>
> The Mathematica plugin gives:
>
> <frac|2<pi>|3>
>
> which is missing a "*" sign.
>
> Only the Maxima plugin gives the correct answer:
>
> <frac|2*<pi>|3>
>
>
>
> Andrea
>
>
>
>
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