path: root/2020/info/33.md

# Maxima a computer algebra system in Emacs
Fermin MF

Maxima is a great tool for symbolic mathematics, it has some support
for Emacs in the main repository, but is quite outdated and doesn't
receive the love I think it should, so a couple of months ago I decide
to improve and "modernize" the maxima-mode.el code base.  So, I want
to talk about the integration with Emacs, the maxima REPL, how some of
the main tool for Emacs integrate in maxima-mode and in general show
how to start using maxima within Emacs.

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# Questions


## Q9 Is it is possible to include maxima in org files similar to jupyter notebooks? (Does ob-maxima have support for the :results graphics header argument of org-src blocks?)


## Q8 Are you planning to upstream your package into Maxima? (would be nice :)


## Q7 In which University do you start to use Maxima?


## Q6. Is there support for images in maxima-mode?


## Q5: Is Maxima's  syntax a strict infix lisp syntax or are there exceptions and special cases? Yes I mean Maxima itself.


## Q4. Is maxima easy to get into in your opinion? (has its quirks though!, mailing list is usually helpful)


## Q3: Do you plan to amend ob-maxima to support named session for maxima code blocks in org mode (e.g. begin\_src maxima :session  **my-maxima**)? (the current implementation supports exactly onesession named **maxima**)


## Q2: how does maxima compare to sagemath in emacs? does maxima have more support because it is written in common lisp whereas sage math is written in python?


## Q1: So I am an avid octave user right now (had a matlab lesson in uni and so I knew the basics and it was easy to get into), what would you say are the advantages of Maxima over Octave as from my understanding they are pretty similar. I would be interested in trying it out but I am not sure if its worth it compared to Octave. (Octave is a matlab "clone", not meant for analytic calculations, more matrix multiplications etc.)