Hello Jordan,
> Since Scilab community didn't answer to this question
> (link Scilab to Maxima), maybe it is possible to link
> Maxima to Scilab. Scilab is powerful in simulations
> and numeric, and Maxima - in symbolics. Both systems
> combined will be much more versatile. There is a link
> from Scilab to Maple, and MuPad (the old Maxima
> competitor :)) includes Scilab... somehow.
I think the way Maxima could interface to a general purpose
numerical package is to treat it as a library and just call
selected functions. So users would work with Maxima
through an existing interface but have access to a wider
collection of functions. Functions to implement matrix
transformations or special functions come to mind.
There is also some potential to reimplement some syntax
in Maxima, if there are some built-in operators in another
package which seem useful.
A substantial problem is that there is typically a lot of
overlap between Maxima and other packages.
So functions can't be imported wholesale. Also there are
often different names or different arguments --
a lot of details to work out.
On the whole, I think it's a lot more realistic for Maxima
to swallow up functions from other packages, rather than
attempting to merge the packages in a way that makes
them both available at the same time.
Thanks for your interest in Maxima,
Robert Dodier