On 7/14/2011 10:46 PM, Robert Dodier wrote:
> On 7/14/11, Raymond Toy<toy.raymond at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I especially like the comment about Sage using Python, "a real
>> programming language". As if any of the other programming languages are
>> less real than Python.
> Well, this is probably a reference to the front-end user language,
> not the implementation language.
Both, I think. The idea that Python is suitable for a front end to
computer algebra is hard to entirely endorse,
considering that after boasting about it, they then find it unsuitable
themselves without a preprocessor
to handle (as I recall) the fact that integers and arbitrary-precision
integers are different types. Maybe
some other things.
The idea that Python is good for adding new features (e.g. "better"
than Lisp for whatever Maxima does in Lisp)
is another boast, and the fact that it is slow is avoided by using
Cython. I thought that Cython was a compiler
for Python, but it apparently is not. It is a compiled language that
looks like parts of Python.
I used to think that marketing hype was a kind of tool used by people
selling products (for money).
Sage people use it for angling for market share. Whatever.
If you want to use python within lisp, there are, I think,
python-to-lisp translators or python interpreters written in lisp.
> Typically math systems
> (symbolic and numerical alike) have a user language which is
> just cobbled together as an afterthought. Python has, at least,
> the advantage of being more nearly complete and more
> carefully designed.
I think that evaluating Python as a language to convey essentially all
of mathematics, Python
is going to appear cobbled together. Also note that Python has changed
from time to time in
fairly significant ways.
One claim (maybe marketing hype too? I don't know first hand) is that
there is ONE implementation
standard for Python on all platforms, and so there is no need to deal
with GCL CCL ECL Scieneer, Allegro...
dialects.
Of course if it were such a great idea for implementation, you'd think
that Sage would run natively on
the most widespread PC platform (Windows) after all these years.
RJF
> It has occurred to me that Python could be a front-end language
> for Maxima, but it would require some work.
>
> best,
>
> Robert Dodier
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