What may be obvious to some people, but not all, is that Maxima's
language is one choice point, and there is nothing to
prevent someone from adding another front end language
that could, for example, be lisp syntax or Matlab syntax
or even Mathematica syntax.
The commercial macsyma can load and execute Matlab.m files,
as well as translate from matlab.m to macsyma functions.
The current language was designed in about 1967, and
was influenced by Algol 60 and Lisp. It is also extensible
in some ways by adding new operators.
RJF
Robert Dodier wrote:
> hi volker,
>
> one more comment -- you wrote in part,
>
>
>>I discovered Maxima to be a wonderful way for teaching a first
>>programming language combined with a CAS. To me and my
>>students it is both easy and powerful.
>
>
> i find the maxima language to be rather pleasant for programming.
> it is simple (which puts limits on what one can do, but for beginners
> that is not a problem), and it inherits from lisp the "everything is an
> expression" point of view.
>
> while we're on the topic, some language features which seem worth
> considering are lexical scope, closures, and a package system.
>
> for what it's worth,
> robert dodier
>
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