Hi,
I am new to Maxima ; I am working in number theory, and my main tool is
Pari-GP for huge numerical computations and MuPAD 2.5.3 for
symbolic/algebraic
computations. But I always add Maxima installed on my system, and I recently
got interested by trying it. I find some aspects of Maxima very nice :
- the various interfaces (Maxima seems to be a little more "open" than
MuPAD though the difference is not big ; it seems also to be more
"open" for the various plotting engines but I didn't look precisely
at that)
- the language seems to me heavier for some aspects (difference
between float and bfloat, etc.)
but the Lisp heritage may be a good point for me
- the license (MuPAD 2.5.3 is free, but I like rather a true
open-source software)
- since I am a FreeBSD user, I need to use MuPAD through the Linux
ABI, which is not
the best in my opinion.
- etc.
But before spending more time for learning Maxima ; I was also
disappointed by some
other aspects (see below). However I am sure Maxima can do some tasks I
need, maybe
with an external package or with a greater knowledge of its syntax.
- a very simple thing :
most of my computations are in Q(sqrt(5)) ; I really need to get
a normalized result : (a + b sqrt(5))/c. For instance, is there a
built-in
method for simplifying (2+sqrt(5))/(4+3*sqrt(5)) to (7+2
sqrt(5))/29 ?
- In a big expression, how can I replace the variable phi^2 with phi+1 ?
The subs function of method can do that : subs(expr,phi^2=phi+1)
But it seems that the sublis function of Maxima can't do the same thing.
- I got a problem with a dummy variable in the definition of a function
having the same name as a function :
myfunction(f) := ... apply(f,...) ...
when I tried to use myfunction(g) for calling "myfunction" with
argument being
a function g, but with the function f being also defined, I always
got the
apply function use the real "f" function instead of g ??? And if f
isn't defined,
the function acts as it should do, replacing the dummy variable f by g.
Here are the first troubles I encountered ; but I still think Maxima
could be
the right choice for me. I would also be interested by any existing packages
concerning number theory, and more precisely continued fractions and
Fibonacci numbers
(I would be very happy to find a package for simplifying expressions
involving many Fibonacci
numbers).
Regards,