Keith, thanks a lot for your interest in Maxima.
> 2) Maxima should concentrate on Symbolic computations, equation
> manipulation and reduction, tensor forms, etc etc - it is, after all,
> a CAS.
I don't think the disinction between symbolic and numerical
computation is really all that clear.
> 3) If you folks really want to support numerical computations it makes
> more sense to improve interfaces to existing libs etc
Well, a foreign function interface (FFI) could be useful
but there is none which works for all of the Lisp varieties of interest
(namely Clisp, CMUCL, SBCL, GCL, and maybe OpenMCL).
So at present our library interface is f2cl (Fortran to Lisp translator).
f2cl cannot handle all valid Fortran constructions but it can do quite a lot.
> under tools such as Texmacs etc etc. If I need to compute
> numerics then I will go first to an established library - I will not use
> Maxima for any solid number crunching exercise - this is allmost
> cetainly what maxima is not intended for.
Well, I have often found that after attempting to solve something
symbolically, I get part-way to a solution and then I need to evaluate
the remainder numerically. (I'm pretty sure that experience is
relatively common.) Or I solve something numerically and then I
want to make the solution depend on a symbolic parameter.
Either way, it would be convenient to stay within one system to
handle both aspects of the problem.
> I really think that it is more useful to concentrate on getting the
> intended functionality in Maxima correct and investing effort there.
> What is currently
> in CVS is not bug free and I would hate to see a very usefull tool
> stagnate because its caretakers have extended the functionality of
> Maxima without having the resources and manpower to
> effective manage and maintain what is allready existing.
I agree that there are subsystems in Maxima (limits, Taylor series,
integration, maybe others) which really, really need work.
Integration, in particular, is very difficult.
If you have the skill to take on revision of the symbolic code,
please join the team. Failing that, please file a bug report when
you find something incorrect.
In the meantime, we are doing what we can with what we have.
And, I am happy to say, we are really doing quite a lot.
FWIW
Robert Dodier