Xref: utzoo sci.math.symbolic:1544 comp.lang.lisp:3410 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!davis From: davis@pacific.pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu ("John E. Davis") Newsgroups: sci.math.symbolic,comp.lang.lisp Subject: Need advice on writing symbolic manipulation programs. Message-ID: Date: 13 Jul 90 08:54:33 GMT Sender: news@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu (John E. Davis) Followup-To: sci.math.symbolic Organization: "Dept. of Physics, The Ohio State University" Lines: 23 Hi, I use macsyma ocasionally. It seems very powerful but for some applications it is hard for me to get macsyma to do what I want. I think that many times the solution is to write a subroutine in macsyma pseudo lisp. I have the macsyma manual but it is difficult to read because it assumes a lisp background. However my question is more general than this. How does one get involved in writing symbolic manipulation programs. After all at a certain level alot of tedious mathematics is manipulation of objects according to well defined rules. I know the rules and I have access to a computer. What is a good language to do this stuff in? Lisp is old but are there any promising new languages around? What about mathematica? Is it written in lisp? -- --John bitnet: davis@ohstpy internet: davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu