Understanding Maxima

This subtree is intended to become a systematic exposition of Maxima's design as seen by the user. This is not the place for implementation discussions or proposals of future features (see Design Notes for that). It is the place to unify and summarize topically organized information on how to use Maxima, supplementing (not replacing) the per-function reference material.

Here are some of the topics that should be treated here:

• Running Maxima for the first time: starting Maxima and some basic syntax
• Variables, constants and its scope: The nature of Maxima variables: programming variables, mathematical variables, scope.

• Expressions: How to manipulate mathematical expressions.

  • Equations and functions: Handling equations and functions.
  • Parts: Manipulating parts of expressions.

• Simplification and Evaluation.

  • Noun Verb: The noun/verb concept.
  • User-defined simplification: A sketch of how tellsimpafter works and how to use it.
  • How to use trigonometric simplification functions: trigsimp, trigrat, trigreduce, etc.

• Rational form: Canonical rational expressions, when and how to use them.

  • Taylor form.
• Lists and matrices.

• Programming in the Maxima language.

  • Conditions and loops
  • Arrays.
  • Translation and compilation.

• Tips and Tricks

  • Read data from file
• Maxima internals: organization of the Maxima implementation.