ANNOUNCE: PySymbolic - Doing Symbolics in Python

[Victor S. Miller]

>>>>> "Pearu" == Pearu Peterson <pearu at ioc.ee> writes:

Pearu> Hi!

Pearu> I have started a project

Pearu>   PySymbolic - "Doing Symbolics in Python"

Pearu> PySymbolic is a collection of tools for doing elementary
Pearu> symbolic calculations in Python. The project is in alpha stage.

Pearu, There are two very mature and quite excellent libraries for
doing symbolic calculation.  Both are available with the GPL.
The first (and oldest) is Pari (see http://www.parigp-home.de).  Pari
was originally intended to be a comprehensive C library for symbolic
calculation (polynomials power series, factorization, etc. etc. --
there's an incredible amount there).  The interface GP was written as
a quick weekend hack to test the library.  However, it was
sufficiently powerful as a programming language (though with rather
unpleasant syntax).  So it's become the "standard" way of unsing
libpari.  The big work to integrate it with Python is that Pari does
it's own storage allocation (so one would tediously need to change all
of those references).

The second (and newer) is LiDIA from University of Darmstadt
(http://www.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/TI/LiDIA/).  It's free for
non-commercial use.  It's written in C++.  It has pretty much the same
capabilities as gp (plus some more).  It would also be much easier to
integrate into Python (I think) since it has a clean interface to a
storage allocator (you can put in your own), and all other hooks to
the system.
-- 
Victor S. Miller     | " ... Meanwhile, those of us who can compute can hardly
victor at idaccr.org    | be expected to keep writing papers saying 'I can do the
CCR, Princeton, NJ   | following useless calculation in 2 seconds', and indeed
    08540 USA        | what editor would publish them?"  -- Oliver Atkin