Xcas is an interface to perform computer algebra, function graphs, interactive geometry (2-d and 3-d), spreadsheet and statistics, programmation.
It may be used as a replacement for high end graphic calculators for example on netbooks (for about the same price as a calculator but with much more performances).The Giac/Xcas project began in year 2000, following the development of the CAS for HP calculators. It has now around 150,000 lines of C code (most written by B. Parisse), and around 300 pages of English documentation (most written by R. De Graeve). It has interfaces with php, latex, texmacs and soon java, playing the role of computation kernel. It also interfaces with PARI, CoCoA, NTL, GSL, GMP, MPFR. Current development directions include faster algorithms for the mostly used operations: multiplication, division, gcd of multivariate polynomials.