[sci.math.symbolic] Need advice on writing symbolic manipulation programs.

davis@pacific.pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu ("John E. Davis") (07/13/90)

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