Re: [Maxima-discuss] How can I call Maxima functions from a language different from Common Lisp? (FFI or server/client, doesn't matter)

[Gunter K. <gu...@pe...>]

Am 1. September 2016 06:45:26 MESZ, schrieb Richard Fateman <fa...@be...>:
>On 8/31/2016 8:54 PM, Leo Butler wrote:
>> I agree with what you have written. But curiously no frontend to
>Maxima
>> takes this approach, as far as I am aware.
>The pseudo-tty interface IS a front end, and it essentially takes this 
>approach.  On Lisp machines, Macsyma
>including  the whole front end (as well as the operating system!) and 
>plotting were all written in Lisp, and
>(while I cannot say I've looked at the implementation of these pieces) 
>
>I would assume that 2-d variable-size
>font etc display was all keyed to lisp internal form -- probably 
>something like the version that comes out of
>the nformat program.   ... this changes  ((mtimes) -1 x)    to
>((mminus) 
>x)     etc.
>
>Why don't other programs use this?  I suspect that for at least some 
>programs, it was a matter
>of matching some API other than Lisp, e.g. MathML,  a choice that looks
>
>more "standard"  and
>only requires a few thousand extra lines of code.
>
>   It is certainly possible now for many
>Lisp implementations to do graphics and typesetting and web access etc 
>etc entirely within
>the Lisp ecosystem.  But probably  the front-end authors wanted to be 
>more implementation-independent.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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The disadvantage of using a human-readable format directly is that it can be mimicked by other human-readable things. If an user uses a variable named \%1 or does similar things this might part of the output look like an input prompt or something else that involuntarily  tricks the fromtend into the wrong state. XML escapes all offending characters or allows to replace them by tags.
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