Adding a generic mathematical library

[Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com>]

> Sent: Monday, July 22, 2024 at 2:49 AM
> From: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@gnu.org>
> To: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech@gmx.com>
> Cc: incal@dataswamp.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Adding a generic mathematical library
>
> > From: Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com>
> > Cc: Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2024 16:41:38 +0200
> > Sensitivity: Normal
> >
> > > > If just Eli and Richard could spend a couple of hours
> > > > explaining what improvements are called for?
> > >
> > > I don't know what math-sin-cos-raw is about, but as for math-hypot,
> > > there's no need to implement anything, since this function is standard
> > > in any C libm, and we can easily expose it to Lisp if we need to.
> >
> > Eli. perhaps there can be a math library that calc can use.  We will
> > then have a generic math library, and calc and other packages could use
> > some of its functionality.  Would that work for you ?  But if Emanuel
> > does not want to touch it, what is the point !
>
> This is too abstract a question.
>
> The original issue was not about Calc, it was about a standalone math
> library.  For that, we should first define the scope.  One possibility
> is to expose to Lisp everything in a typical libm, but is that needed?
> Another possibility is to provide a statistical library (average,
> median, standard deviation, t-Student, F-test, chi-square, etc.) --
> but do we need this?  Etc. etc. -- "math library" can be interpreted
> in many different ways.
>
> If we are now talking about improving Calc, someone who knows Calc
> well should describe what is needed, and we can then discuss that in
> detail.

Using Emacs Calc as a foundation for a new mathematical library
in Emacs is a practical and efficient approach.  Calc is a powerful tool
with extensive mathematical capabilities, so building on it allows
for leveraging its strengths while focusing on specific needs and
functionalities.

I rather have the people who work on calc do it as they have much more
experience and grasp of what a math library for emacs should do.