Is Maxima modular?...(and/or How learn source code?...)

I suggest you look at the documentation available,
starting from the 1971 paper in SYMSAC conference
by William A. Martin and Richard Fateman, further
information on the simplifier from a paper I wrote
(a copy somewhere on my web page), and other documentation
gathered by the Maxima list.

What is your objective in all this? The rational function
manipulation code is in files with names that begin
with RAT.

If you are interested in (for example) parsing,
you should probably not learn from maxima code at
all, unless you have an extremely strong reason
other than curiosity.

If you want a sample of how such programs could
be written, not specifically maxima, I suggest
you look at Norvig's book, Paradigms of AI Programming,
which shows simplification, integration, parsing
written in Lisp.

RJF


seberino@spawar.navy.mil wrote:
> Richard
> 
> 
>>In fact, most of the underlying code that can be
>>thought of as neatly modular in nature is modular
>>already. If you only provide (say) polynomial arithmetic,
>>then you can be pretty clean.
> 
> 
> How would you recommend one learn about the underlying
> architecture of Maxima??  I'm looking at the
> src directory of Maxima and I see a ton of files.
> How can I break thru and get a better understanding
> of the architecture??
> 
> My only paradigm for attacking complex programs I
> know is "divide and conquer".  I'm tempted to somehow
> put lots of these files in separate directories
> or at least associate groups of them in my head.
> I feel like best idea is to 
> treat many of them as "black boxes" somehow.
> 
> How can I get a handle of this modular nature of Maxima???
> 
> I'm all ears.
> 
> Chris
> _______________________________________________
> Maxima mailing list
> Maxima@www.math.utexas.edu
> http://www.math.utexas.edu/mailman/listinfo/maxima