[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-16 Thread Ted Kosan
William wrote I would be happy to introduce a short-cut alias for numerical_approx, e.g., N() or n() or ??. ... Something simple like a.N() might be quite reasonable as a shortcut for a.numerical_approx(), and would be very simple to implement (just one line of code in an appropriate

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-11 Thread Ted Kosan
Nick wrote: I use RR(expr) and find it at least as usable as the N[expr] notation of Mathematica. and William wrote: We should learn a lot about how Mathematica/Maple, etc., work, and why, but then make a _choice_ for SAGE that is a reasonable trade-off between various options. Python is

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-11 Thread William Stein
On 7/10/07, Ted Kosan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have found myself using numerical_approx() instead of RR() because it is also placed at the end of the line and so is relatively easy to locate the cursor there and add it. With RR(), one has to wrap the code in a function and then unwrap it

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-11 Thread Joel B. Mohler
On Tue, Jul 10, 2007 at 02:54:31PM -0700, William Stein wrote: On 7/10/07, David Harvey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't really like the idea of modules that imitate various environments, i.e. I don't think it's possible or desirable for us to try to look specifically like any other

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-11 Thread William Stein
On 7/11/07, Joel B. Mohler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the init file idea needs to be pushed harder. I already do this and the flexibility is absolutely critical to my happiness. I even have my init file call another file in the current directory so I can have different things

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-11 Thread Hamptonio
I would be willing to chip in some effort on the mathematica.sage file, although not in the very near future. I plan to begin migrating my undergraduate courses to sage from mathematica for fall semester 2008. I hope to convince other faculty do to the same, but it won't be easy. I am mainly

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-11 Thread William Stein
On 7/11/07, Hamptonio [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would be willing to chip in some effort on the mathematica.sage file, although not in the very near future. I plan to begin migrating my undergraduate courses to sage from mathematica for fall semester 2008. I hope to convince other faculty

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-11 Thread Hamptonio
Well the biggest reason is just inertia: my department has been using mathematica for years, and everyone has a full set of computer labs and handouts and demos already done in mathematica. Why learn a new system and have to port everything over? We don't even directly pay for the license as a

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-10 Thread Nick Alexander
Ted Kosan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In SAGE, I have ended up using the numerical_approx() method as an equivalent to N[] and //N in Mathematica, but I have found it not to be as quick and easy to use. I use RR(expr) and find it at least as usable as the N[expr] notation of Mathematica. Nick

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-10 Thread Hamptonio
I agree that RR(expr) works well as an N(expr) replacement. It would be nice for mathematica migrators to actually have N() defined, although that does clutter up the namespace more. I hadn't realized that mathematica was so unusual in its behavior in this regard. However, there's another

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-10 Thread Bobby Moretti
Hi all, So far I've been refraining from posting here, since I don't have strong feelings one way or the other, but the discussion so far has been great and I'd like to leave a few comments. On 7/8/07, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Thanks for all the feedback from everybody

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-10 Thread boothby
-1 to single-letter functions in the namespace. Also note that RDF(expr) works too, and is marginally to extremely faster, depending on the precision that RR is using. On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Hamptonio wrote: I agree that RR(expr) works well as an N(expr) replacement. It would be nice for

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-10 Thread Hamptonio
Perhaps it would help to start with a fairly clean namespace and then have some modules which would imitate various environments. So for example, there might be a simple command like: set_style('mathematica') which would define the N() function, and some other favorite mathematica functions.

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-10 Thread David Harvey
I don't really like the idea of modules that imitate various environments, i.e. I don't think it's possible or desirable for us to try to look specifically like any other system. Mathematica semantics are so different from SAGE's, it would be misleading to suggest anything like that. But I

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-10 Thread William Stein
On 7/10/07, David Harvey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't really like the idea of modules that imitate various environments, i.e. I don't think it's possible or desirable for us to try to look specifically like any other system. Mathematica semantics are so different from SAGE's, it would be

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-10 Thread Justin C. Walker
On Jul 10, 2007, at 2:20 PM, David Harvey wrote: I don't really like the idea of modules that imitate various environments, i.e. I don't think it's possible or desirable for us to try to look specifically like any other system. Mathematica semantics are so different from SAGE's, it would

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-10 Thread Robert Bradshaw
Though I am against having all single-letter symbolic variables defined, I want to put a comment in for having a well-populated global namespace at startup. I like this so I can get right to work with out having to import a bunch of stuff too (let alone remember where things are). This is

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-10 Thread Justin C. Walker
On Jul 10, 2007, at 2:54 PM, William Stein wrote: On 7/10/07, David Harvey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip] But I *do* like the idea of the clean initial namespace, which gets subsequently polluted on demand when requested by the user. I do not think this should be the default for

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-09 Thread Ted Kosan
William wrote: From an implementation point of view, given the SAGE rules, it makes way more sense for 2.5*sin(1) to remain symbolic, since: (1) this is what the backend simplification system (maxima) does, and (2) 2.5 * sin(1) in SAGE is computed by making 2.5 symbolic, then doing

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-08 Thread didier deshommes
2007/7/8, Hamptonio [EMAIL PROTECTED]: My biases are probably based on using mathematica for 17 years, but I like the way it handles numerical vs symbolic computations. So at present, in sage, sin(1) is symbolic, and sin(1.0) is numerical, and +1, I like this behavior as well. And I like

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-08 Thread Ondrej Certik
2007/7/7, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED]: So I propose that the only symbolic variables that are predefined are x (since it's so useful to have this predefined), I (=sqrt(-1)), and e (=2.7...). I myself prefer to import everything by hand in Python. Thus the sage module can have many

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-08 Thread William Stein
Hi, Thanks for all the feedback from everybody about symbolic variables, special functions, etc. For now (i.e., the very near term), I think the best thing to do is: (1) remove all predefined *symbolic* variables except x, leave in e, pi, and I: -- everybody basically wants

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-07 Thread David Joyner
On 7/7/07, William Stein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I just taught a very intense two week workshop on the Riemann Hypothesis to 24 bright high school students, in which we used SAGE quite a lot each day for 2.5 hours (http://wstein.org/simuw/). I'm now very seriously considering some

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-07 Thread Justin C. Walker
On Jul 7, 2007, at 10:44 , William Stein wrote: So I propose that the only symbolic variables that are predefined are x (since it's so useful to have this predefined), I (=sqrt(-1)), and e (=2.7...). If users want a symbolic variable, they have to use the var command. I prefer having

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-07 Thread William Stein
On 7/7/07, Justin C. Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jul 7, 2007, at 10:44 , William Stein wrote: So I propose that the only symbolic variables that are predefined are x (since it's so useful to have this predefined), I (=sqrt(-1)), and e (=2.7...). If users want a symbolic variable,

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-07 Thread Robert Bradshaw
On Jul 7, 2007, at 10:44 AM, William Stein wrote: The first is *removing* having predefined symbolic variable names. I.e., in SAGE right now the variables a..z and A..Z are prdefined at startup to be symbolic variables (except for I and e). +1 for nothing but e, I, and x defined by

[sage-devel] Re: predefined symbolic variable names

2007-07-07 Thread David Harvey
Strongly support having as few predefined variables as possible. The closer to zero the better. Honestly I would even prefer the entire startup namespace to be as empty as possible; I would rather have to import EllipticCurve, NumberField, etc than have them pre-loaded. I know I won't get my