[Texmacs-dev] plugins

[Andrea Gamba]

I think that the possibility to have a common open source interface to 
different mathematical packages is an awesome feature of Texmacs, 
something really unique, but a stronger effort is needed to make it work 
reliably, taking also into account software upgrades, etc.

In principle it would be nice to have some degree of unification, for 
instance one should be able to copy and paste mathematical expressions 
between different mathematical packages.

That would make different mathematical packages interoperable by 
providing a common translation based on texmacs. It would then become 
extremely easy to check for instance with Mathematica a computation 
previously performed with Maple or Axiom.

To achieve that, it would be necessary to provide a precise 
specification of a standard format to describe mathematical expressions, 
to be used both in the input and output of all texmacs plugins. That 
would free users e.g. from the necessity to remember that the same 
integral can be

int(sin(x),x=1..100) in Maple,
integrate(sin(x),x=1..100) in Axiom,
integrate(sin(x),x,1,100) in Maxima,
Integrate[Sin[x],{x,1,100}] in Mathematica,
etc.

At the moment, it is not even possible to paste back an output as an 
input to the same package. As an example, if I write at the Maple prompt

\frac 2 * \pi (down arrow) 3 (right arrow) (enter)

I get as an output:

2/3pi

(i.e.: 2/3<space|0.25spc><pi>  )

which cannot obviously be fed back to any other plugin, not even to 
Maple itself.

This kind of Maple output (which is the common way fractional factors 
are printed by the plugin) is also quite confusing in practice, because 
it tends to be read as

2/(3 pi).

With the same input, the Axiom plugin gives

<frac|2|3>p*i

which is quite unsatisfactory.

The Mathematica plugin gives:

<frac|2<pi>|3>

which is missing a "*" sign.

Only the Maxima plugin gives the correct answer:

<frac|2*<pi>|3>



Andrea