Re: What is the status of ob-maxima.el? Is this a bug?

[Leo Butler <Leo.Butler@umanitoba.ca>]

On Tue, Dec 05 2023, "Fraga, Eric" <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

> On Tuesday,  5 Dec 2023 at 16:59, Leo Butler wrote:
>> You mentioned returning a value from a maxima code block. 
>
> By this, I mean the value of the last sexp as some other src blocks do
> (elisp? octave? Not sure which...).  It's what I would expect to see if
> I were to specify ":results value".

I think it should be easy to provide this for a few data types (matrix,
string, maybe list), but I think the conversion from a Lisp sexp to an
ELisp sexp will need a lot of assumptions. E.g. how to convert the
Maxima list:

[[a,b],[c,d,[e,f]]]

Or maybe such cases are not important?

Also, what would we do with an arbitrary mathematical expression? Return
a printed representation?

>
> And your improvements definitely look good!  Thanks.  I use maxima a lot
> for teaching so will need to reconsider the material on some of my
> slides (next year... :-)).
>
> I also use embedded Calc as it's easier to incorporate directly in text,
> especially in org, but Calc is not quite as capable as maxima as a
> computer algebra system.

Thanks.

I have used Calc, but never really got the hang of it.

Developing a working session for maxima would make it more feasible to
use it directly in text, as you are using Calc.

Leo