From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 81472BC40 for ; Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:25:44 +0200 (CEST) Received: from pauillac.inria.fr (pauillac.inria.fr [128.93.11.35]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id i9SBPiI7027652 for ; Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:25:44 +0200 Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id NAA27308 for ; Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:25:43 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from haka.fmf.uni-lj.si (haka.fmf.uni-lj.si [193.2.67.18]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id i9SBPhiS009270 for ; Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:25:43 +0200 Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] ident=andrej) by haka.fmf.uni-lj.si with esmtp (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 1CN8PW-0000l5-00 for ; Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:25:42 +0200 Message-ID: <4180D736.2020606@andrej.com> Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:25:42 +0200 From: Andrej Bauer User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.3 (X11/20040830) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: replacing Mathematica was: Polymorphic pretty printing References: <9410EC84C0872141B27A2726613EF45D02A52DE0@psmrdcex01.psm.pin.safeco.com> In-Reply-To: <9410EC84C0872141B27A2726613EF45D02A52DE0@psmrdcex01.psm.pin.safeco.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.85.0.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 4180D738.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 4180D737.001 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; andrej:01 andrej:01 replacing:01 henrikson:01 wrote:01 symbolic:01 derivative:01 notation:01 symbolic:01 algebra:01 ocaml:01 toplevel:01 ocaml:01 syntax:01 notation:01 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.0 (2004-09-13) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled version=3.0.0 X-Spam-Level: HENRIKSON, JEFFREY wrote: > > On the subject of evil plan, I would like to say: if you write yet > another symbolic package, make sure to get the derivative notation > right! I do not wish to write yet another symbolic algebra system. I want to have an enriched ocaml toplevel with ocaml as my "symbolic language". Possibly I would use camlp4 to enrich syntax with notation for finite sets. Perhaps one day I would want to look at something like FreshML or what Aleksandar Nanevski from CMU has been doing for his Ph.D. to get some "symbolic" into ocaml. But I definitely do not want to have a rewrite system. The world has seen enough poorly designed "languages" for symbolic manipulation that are little more than confused combinations of rewrite systems and BASIC. Thanks for pointing to the MIT derivative algebra implementation. I will have a look at it. My idea of derivation was rather that the differential operator D is an operator on a suitable algebra. With rich enough types in my programming language, it should be possible to implement D as an honest function--no funny notation needed. Best regards, Andrej