Making Maxima be Mathematica compatible...

--- Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> If your C programs
> offer no special advantage over just
> using Maxima (always a possibility...)
> you could chalk your efforts up to a
> learning experience and proceed to
> use lisp etc. for your next project.

If you just want the ability to run Mathematica
documents I'd consider starting with Dr. Fateman's
MockMMA and port it over to run as an interface
to Maxima.  This could be difficult, because it
would mean translating Mathematica concepts
into their Maxima equivalents and implimenting 
functionality missing in Maxima, but you would have
the advantage of not needing to worry about the
problems of C and Lisp and not having to worry about
duplicating the parts that Maxima already has.  
 
> Or if you want to proceed further with C
> using Maxima...
> Another possibility is for you to produce
> character strings that look like macsyma
> commands and receive and re-parse character
> strings of the same nature, from a different
> process. maybe a pipe, or via files.

I think this is how Symaxx works.  It is 
inelegant but effective.  

> Another possibility is to use lisp-like strings
> instead. Then the parsing both ways is
> trivial.
> 
> Other people may have other suggestions.
> RJF

My advice would be to start with MockMMA and build
on Maxima, but if you want the learning experience
than take a look at Symaxx for how to proceed.  It
is written in Perl, but should give you some pointers
on how to interface with Maxima via text files.  
Another possibility might be to use Yacas instead,
which is not as powerful as Maxima but might be easier
to adapt to your needs. It is written in C++.  Maybe
you could impliment Mathematica features on top of the
Yacas core, if you don't care for lisp programming.
In any case, good luck and have fun.

CY

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