[Axiom-developer] [Texmacs-dev] New tm_axiom.c & question on stderr

[Bill Page]

Mike,

So if I understand you correctly, what TeXmacs really aught
to do is to invoke just the interpreter via AXIOMsys - not
the whole "Superman" thing. Right? This way, there will
always only be one prompt. The fact that TeXmacs used to
expect two prompts was an accident due to the fact that it
(incorrectly) invoked more that what is really required for
the TeXmacs-Axiom interface.

So, both the old and new versions of Axiom should be compatible
with the new version of the tm_axiom.c program *provided* we
agree to call the new Axiom interpreter by the name AXIOMsys.
We should reserve the name 'axiom' for the invoking Superman
when/if it becomes available in the new open source version.

So far I a very pleased with the combination of TeXmacs and
Axiom. I am so used to working with a Maple/Matematica style
"worksheet" interface, that play with the command line mode
of Axiom (or even Maple for that matter) just seems too awkward.
And of course TeXmacs has the advantage that it can simultaneously
interface with a large number of open source computer algebra
and related packages, include gnuplot, macsyma, R (statistics),
etc. and *also* Maple - all from one worksheet environment!

The Axiom tutorial tex files that you sent look promising
for conversion to TeXmacs format. I will spend a bit of time
on that over the next few days.

Thanks.

Bill Page.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Dewar [mailto:address@hidden 
> Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 5:12 AM
> To: Bill. Page1 E-mail"
> Cc: 'address@hidden'; 'address@hidden'
> Subject: Re: [Axiom-developer] RE: [Texmacs-dev] New 
> tm_axiom.c & question on stderr
> 
> 
> Hi Bill,
> 
> There seems to be a misconception that the NAG version of 
> Axiom puts out two prompts on startup while the Open version 
> puts out one.  This is not actually true: the Axiom 
> interpreter (invoked via the command `AXIOMsys' in the NAG 
> version, and presumably via `axiom' in your version) only 
> puts out one prompt: the reason you can see two is that sman 
> (the "Superman" process that manages communication between 
> the interpreter, hyperdoc, browser, graphics etc.) causes the 
> interpreter to start a new frame, which forces a new prompt 
> (you can do the same by typing ")frame new foo").  Once Tim 
> gets sman working the Open version will presumably work in 
> the same way.  So your new tm_axiom ought to work the same 
> way with both versions if they are invoked in the equivalent
> way.
> 
> I haven't seen the TeXmacs interface to Axiom but we used to 
> maintain a TeX-based interface under Windows (based on IBM's 
> TechExplorer) and it had lots of nice features - a TeX 
> version of the browser, the ability to execute worksheets 
> etc.  Some of this code was embedded in the front-end but the 
> browser code, for example, was all in boot.  The main file in 
> question was br-saturn.boot ("saturn" was IBM's pre-release name
> for TechExplorer) and we also used the $saturn variable to test 
> whether we were in TechExplorer or not in a few places (this 
> was so we could use the same CCL image files for both the 
> TechExplorer and shell interfaces of Axiom under Windows).  
> It might be worth somebody trying to resurrect this code - 
> the only hitch I can foresee is that we added a grep command 
> to CCL (coded in C) since Windows doesn't have a grep 
> program, but you can always spawn off a system command under 
> Unix (which is what the original IBM version of Axiom did) to 
> get the same result.
> 
> Mike.
>