CY wrote
>> obtaining the numbers to plot can be handed off to another
>> routine.
Yes, but I don't like handing floating-point off to something else:
(1) Suppose Maxima and the graphing utility use different
normalizations for (say) the Hermite polynomials---choas prevails.
Stuff like this happends all the time!
(2)Suppose a function needs to be evaluated using bfloats (maybe the
only known formula for it is ill-conditioned---it happens!).
If you send the formula off to to graphics utility for evaluatation,
you're toast.
(3) Maxima may be able to evaluate some functions that the graphics
utility cannot---that's a big disapointment to the user.
(4) Some numerical algorithms in Maxima maybe more accurage than the
algorithms in a graphics package. (There are some!) That would be
a big dissapointment.
Barton
PS An example of (2)
I wrote code for numerical evaluatation of general hypergeometric sums.
Rounding errors can make a mess of the calculation. My code adjusts the
value of fpprec until some condition is satisfied, then does the
calculation.
Barton