Hi, I would like to try out symbolic programming. I know maple,
mathematica and others are computer algebra system that let you do
that, but they are not primitive languages. I would like to write and
run a very simple program [something like expanding (x^2 + 3)^2/(x)]
but written in a language like C or C++ or other. Do you know which is
the best and easiest programming language for symbolic computation?
And is there like a book which teaches symbolic math programming (I
know there are books who present general algorithms like the book of
Symbolic Integration by Bronstein, but this is of little use to me
now, because it's not fully practical, I need something like symbolic
programming for dummies with all details). Thanks

Hi, I would like to try out symbolic programming. I know maple,
mathematica and others are computer algebra system that let you do
that, but they are not primitive languages. I would like to write and
run a very simple program [something like expanding (x^2 + 3)^2/(x)]
but written in a language like C or C++ or other. Do you know which is
the best and easiest programming language for symbolic computation?
And is there like a book which teaches symbolic math programming (I
know there are books who present general algorithms like the book of
Symbolic Integration by Bronstein, but this is of little use to me
now, because it's not fully practical, I need something like symbolic
programming for dummies with all details). Thanks

And is there like a book which teaches symbolic math programming (I
know there are books who present general algorithms like the book of
Symbolic Integration by Bronstein, but this is of little use to me
now, because it's not fully practical, I need something like symbolic
programming for dummies with all details). Thanks

try Peter Norvig, Paradigms of AI Programming. The language is Lisp.
All the details are there, for a simple math simplifier.

On May 6, 8:08 pm, rjf <fate... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

try Peter Norvig, Paradigms of AI Programming. The language is Lisp.
All the details are there, for a simple math simplifier.

Thanks. I searched a little bit on the net yesterday and it seems it's
what I want. But I have a general question (to anyone who can answer):
I have never used lisp before (I used S+ for statistical programming
and C++ for general programming). Do you have any idea if it's
generally useful to learn lisp (beyond the advantage of symbolic)?

Can
you do general programming in it, like C++ (or at least mathematical
programming like Fortran or S+)?
Yes, you can even do matrix calculations. See matlisp.

"dead" language in the sense that it is not used anymore

and probably
there is less (or no) support and development, so I'm afraid it would
be a waste of time and energy to learn it (would be like learning
latin).

Anyway, I downloaded something called XLISP-PLUS and will try
to figure out what it is.

There are many ignorant people who voice opinions on many things.
If you search for articles on computer language popularity, you will
find many articles, suggesting that such previously popular languages
like Pascal, Java, Perl,  are dropping in some metric, whileLispmay
even be growing.  However, for building a computer algebra system,Lispis certainly common: e.g. Reduce, Axiom/Scratchpad, Macsyma/
Maxima,
and a host of experimental systems.