How install/run MockMMA??? needs Maxima to run?

Hi Chris.

> > CY/Richard or whomever was implying that you might like to write
> a binding
> > between the MockMMA language and the Maxima mathematics engine.
> That is not
> > a simple task.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Mike Thomas.

> Why isn't it simple to tweak MockMMA string and send it to Maxima
> for processing?
>
> If I'm not mistaken Symaxx is a Perl front end that talks
> to Maxima with strings in both directions.  Is that right?

> *Why* is it really hard to make some sort of Maxima shared object
> or library that we can access from another object?

I said "not simple" - not "really hard".  These terms are relative and my
words were based on the impression that you are a Lisp beginner and the fact
that, as Richard explained, there is more than one level of difficulty in
your task with respect to how much of Mathematica you want to support.

Getting down to your current question, as far as I know none of the Lisps
currently used to compile Maxima (with the possible exception of ACL) make
it trivial for you to bundle Maxima in the form of a "shared object"
(assuming you mean something like a dynamic library, Corba or COM object).
If Maxima was buildable with Corman Common Lisp (it isn't), a COM component
might be relatively easy on Windows but not on other platforms.  In any
case, you will have to rewrite some part of Maxima to account for this way
of doing things, in a Lisp implementation specific kind of way.

If, on the other hand, you want to communicate with Maxima via sockets then
the precedent is already set in the way the TCL front end (XMaxima) operates
(and, as you also mention, presumably Symaxx).  It might be worth your while
to look at those applications.

Cheers

Mike Thomas.