[sage-devel] Fwd: Computer algebra system? / SAGE and Pipes

William Stein wrote:

>It's entirely possible that at some point in the future the SAGE <--> Maxima
>interface would change to use something besides pipes. 
>

this is very promising.
It's a good approach that you, after preliminary connection via pipes,
searching for "closer" API-level connection, as you did with other
included packages.

> If somebody
>figures out a different way, which is better, I'd very much love to
>hear about it.
>
>  
>

besides pipes there are:

- sockets.
MAXIMA itself uses sockets for Tk interface, (likewise GCL uses sockets
for Tk), this could be anoter approach.

- cffi
Using CFFI isn't very problematic, but it works in opposite direction -
you call external shared libraries from LISP and not vice versa.
(that is the way I'm using CLISP in my local configuration)

- clisp way of using external libraries.
you can create python's external libraries using clisp linking set, I
suppose, but this approach isn'r very good, because you will be tied to
particular lisp  implementation.

(I'm assuming you're using CLISP, as long as it is packed with SAGE)

Best regards,
Vadim.