There are many fairly well-specified areas in which Maxima could be
improved,
simply by looking at the (on-line) specifications of the commercial
Macsyma, and having a testing process by which the new features could
be benchmarked against the Macsyma system.
That is, a reverse-engineering approach could be applied to
many of the tasks including
better definite integration
hypergeometric function simplification
numerical methods (Macsyma includes a whole Matlab-like subsystem
including Matlab syntax)
data-base like operations
text-notebook operations
3-d plot on-line manipulation (rotation etc)
solution of ODEs,
taylorsolve of algebraic and differential equations
Another bunch of stuff could be reverse-engineering against
Maple, Mathematica, Mupad, Axiom, or numerical systems including
Matlab and Mathcad.
Yet other possibilities:
making available via foreign functions all the facilities
of some other numeric or non-numeric libraries.
Look at, for example, NTL, GMP, MPFR, ..
While I would prefer not to think of these as main-line
issues, we could also see
better typeset/ line-breaking
handwriting or speech input (what I've been doing with some students)
multiple-processor stuff
I thought the summer of code needed mentors or sponsors,
though.
Nicolas Pettiaux wrote:
>2006/4/17, Irwin Zaid <izaid at connect.carleton.ca>:
>
>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>A few days ago, Google announced that there will be another Summer of
>>Code that will take place from May 23 to August 21. There are more
>>details at http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html
>>
>>This is something that Maxima could really use to its benefit, and as
>>such it would be rather useful to discuss ideas for possible projects.
>>
>>
>
>This is a very good idea
>
>I think we could support all your proposal and maybe rank them with
>respect to difficulty of developpement (and time/resources required),
>and I am mostly supportive for extension to maxima that would allow
>for easier interaction with external applications, expecially through
>the use of python
>
>
>
>>1. Linear Algebra
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>2. Generalized Functions
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>3. Differential Equations
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>4. Linear Programming
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>5. Numerical Methods
>>- Add more numerical methods to Maxima. Root-finding, numerical
>>solutions of PDEs, etc... Perhaps this should involve Octave?
>>
>>
>
>I think using octave within maxima for what octave can easily provide
>is a very good point. So building a very good and simple "connection"
>maxima <=> octave is a very valuable objective
>
>
>
>>6. Other
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>- Matplotlib/Pylab (http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/) produces very
>>high-quality plots and animations with LaTeX text. It would be useful if
>>Maxima could interact with it somehow. Since this is a Python module, it
>>would involve building some Python support in Maxima.
>>
>>
>
>As written, I would appreciate this very much. This would also allow
>for the use of the myriad of python external specialized libraries
>from within maxima (eg: numpy, scipy, impy ...)
>
>
>
>>- Various GUI work.
>>
>>
>
>yes, eg. extension to wxmaxima (the GUI that I prefer) with some
>rendering and saving that are similar to what maple and mathematica
>provide
>
>
>
>>- Vector analysis and differential geometry. Maxima already has packages
>>for both of these, but they might be able to use some more work.
>>
>>
>
>Thanks for the ideas.
>
>These could be put either in the wiki or in http://launchpad.net a
>very good tool for that purpose I think.
>
>Nicolas
>
>--
>Nicolas Pettiaux - email: nicolas.pettiaux at ael.be
>
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>