On Sat, 2002-05-04 at 08:44, bhinkle4@juno.com wrote:
> I have a question about the architecture of maxima, which I don't think has been addressed recently:
> Do the new development plans include a "maxima engine" module?
> This engine would just have the core symbolic manipulation code and none of the plotting or GUI abilities. This would encourage linking the maxima engine into other systems, much like GMP is linked into Python, Perl, etc (even maxima, I think). The more modular the system is the more likely it will become the lingua-franca of free symbolic engines.
While a "maxima engine" sounds like a great idea, it isn't clear to me
exactly what you have in mind.
1) There is no gui code in maxima right now. There is a separate xmaxima
module.
2) The only plotting code in maxima consists of some pretty trivial
hooks to external programs.
3) What would you expect the engine to do? Take a string, evaluate it,
then return another string? You can already do that.
--Jim