> > This is a highly non-trivial task to accomplish. The real kicker wouldn't > > be so much to integrate with a numerics-only package like octave, but > > rather with a full-fledged technical computing environment like Mathematica > > or Maple. Unfortunately there's no real open source equivalent to these > > two, but they both offer well defined low-level communication interfaces. > > So it's not impossible, and in fact quite interesting. But a lot of work. > > Maybe when Lyx 2.0 with clean qt/gtk front ends is out and stable, the > > developers will turn their attention to such esoteric projects. But don't > > hold your breath, you might turn purple... > > How about SciLab?
Well, to be honest I've only briefly played with it so I may be way off. But my impression is that nothing in the open source world comes even close to Mathematica or Maple. Unfortunately the kind of expertise needed for that stuff is quite esoteric and it just isn't that easy to gather enough voluntary contributors for such a complex project. As I said, maybe Scilab will become competitive, I'm just not too hopeful. Very specialized software is one of those ecological niches where I think proprietary software has a good chance of survival. Not that I like it, mind you (If you've ever dealt with Wolfram about a bug or licensing you know what I mean) but I just think it's the way it goes. Cheers, f
