Re: Why Maxima is in Lisp/ if you want to rewrite, here are some projects

Sigh.  Let's try that again, without the html toggle
on.

> --- Richard Fateman  wrote:
> Writing an alternative
> front end for Maxima is a
> tricky
> business.

Indeed...

> Symmax or Schelter's Xmaxima  or .... These are 
> experiments in user interfaces, and regardless of
> the  programming skill of the implementor, can be 
> good or bad designs.  One possibility is to take an 
> existing successful interface and slavishly copy it.
 
> There are several models. Symmax, or at least one 
> version of it seemed to copy Mathcad. I personally 
> don't care for that, but tastes vary. Mathematica, 
> Maple, and the commercial Macsyma are similar in
many 
> respects.

They are, and I think that may be one of the things to
recommend that style of interface, if it can be
managed - the less of a learning curve for people with
previous training, the more willing they will be to
look at Maxima.  

> I like the traditional script-based interaction,
> especially since I can use emacs to manage the 
> script. This is probably old-fashioned.

I wouldn't say old-fashioned - I think that's a trait
of true power users.  There are relatively few such
users, but my guess is that they would all share that
opinion.

> To the extent that the fancy interface makes this> 
> impossible, I find myself uncomfortable.

 What would you say are the ways current interfaces on
other programs limit that type of work?  It would be
nice to have our cake and eat it too, so to speak.

> Even to the extent of managing a script in emacs and

> then "batch" loading it into the computer algebra 
> system.

> If you write a GUI, there are ways of doing so IN 
> lisp, but I think you have trouble with portability.

Is  that how xemacs does it's GUI?  I must confess I
didn't have much luck trying to figure out the Lisp
GUI game.

> See what Schelter did:  he used something
> like Tcl/TK> which is implemented on several
> platforms, and then linked to lisp in another
> process.

Is that ability specific to Tcl/Tk or can that be done
with other toolkits?

> This is not optimal on any specific platform, but it
> is pretty good for portability.

Given how fast most modern computers are, I suspect we
can afford to give up a little efficiency in the
communication between the front and back end, as long
as the result isn't visible to the user.As to
portability, I like the looks of the WxWindows toolkit
- it has Linux and Windows versions and I believe
there is even a port to the Mac underway.
Unfortunately, I believe it is a C++ library - does
that squash the chances of maxima talking to it?

> PS. You could also look at other packages:  Matlab 
> comes to mind (or its free clone), could be added to

> Maxima.

I think that's Octave?  I've often wondered if a
merger of that project and Maxima would be a good idea
- they seem to have done well with the numerical end
of things.

Also, does anyone know anything about the plplot
library?  In my experience, at least, the current
plotting routine seems a bit slow under Linux (it does
OK on Windows) and plplot seems to handle a lot of the
same types of operations.  


CY


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