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It would have been useful to say that sympy means "symbolic Python" or, more generally, "a symbolic mathematics library". This means one can submit algebraic an

by lutusp 12y ago

It would have been useful to say that sympy means "symbolic Python" or, more generally, "a symbolic mathematics library". This means one can submit algebraic and differential equations to be solved, and sympy can solve a great number of them. http://docs.sympy.org/dev/modules/solvers/solvers.html http://docs.sympy.org/dev/modules/solvers/solvers.html

JadeNB 12y ago
> It would have been useful to say that sympy means "symbolic Python" or, more generally, "a symbolic mathematics library". This means one can submit algebraic and differential equations to be solved, and sympy can solve a great number of them. I'm not sure I understand this comment; SymPy here is the name of the program (http://sympy.org http://sympy.org), not the author's abbreviation. Surely one need not explain the etymology of the name of a program in order to give a tutorial on it? If, on the other hand, you meant that it is good to learn how to use any sort of symbolic mathematics library, not just SymPy, then that is certainly true—but the author's advice appears to be quite specific to SymPy.
- lutusp 12y ago
  > SymPy here is the name of the program (http://sympy.org http://sympy.org), not the author's abbreviation. It's not a program, it's the name of a Python library responsible for mathematical functions: http://sympy.org/en/index.html http://sympy.org/en/index.html Quote: "SymPy is a Python library for symbolic mathematics." > Surely one need not explain the etymology of the name of a program in order to give a tutorial on it? It's useful to know what these terms mean. > ... but the author's advice appears to be quite specific to SymPy. Yes, no problem there. SymPy's abilities appear in IPython (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPython http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPython) and Sage (http://www.sagemath.org/ http://www.sagemath.org/) to some extent also -- I've been involved in these projects for years. My Sage tutorial: http://arachnoid.com/sage http://arachnoid.com/sage My IPython tutorial: http://www.arachnoid.com/IPython http://www.arachnoid.com/IPython My Python tutorial: http://www.arachnoid.com/python http://www.arachnoid.com/python
  - tjl 12y ago
    SymPy doesn't appear in IPython, but IPython is aware of SymPy if it's installed so you can get nice printing of math in the notebook. Also, why link to the Wikipedia page for IPython and not the homepage? For most people, I'd actually recommend the use of the IPython notebook for doing any SymPy work as you can get the nicely formatted math and inline plots. If one is doing debugging, then you're better off in one of the Python IDEs. The PyDy guys who work on the sympy.mechanics module have done some nice IPython worksheets. The SymPy tutorial that's part of the SymPy docs isn't too bad and there's the SymPy live shell so one can try things out. While we've mostly moved away from IRC, we're now on Gitter and there's also the mailing list if you have specific questions. Note: I'm a SymPy developer (and a GSoC 2014 mentor).

by lutusp 12y ago

JadeNB 12y ago

> It would have been useful to say that sympy means "symbolic Python" or, more generally, "a symbolic mathematics library". This means one can submit algebraic and differential equations to be solved, and sympy can solve a great number of them. I'm not sure I understand this comment; SymPy here is the name of the program (http://sympy.org http://sympy.org), not the author's abbreviation. Surely one need not explain the etymology of the name of a program in order to give a tutorial on it? If, on the other hand, you meant that it is good to learn how to use any sort of symbolic mathematics library, not just SymPy, then that is certainly true—but the author's advice appears to be quite specific to SymPy.

lutusp 12y ago
> SymPy here is the name of the program (http://sympy.org http://sympy.org), not the author's abbreviation. It's not a program, it's the name of a Python library responsible for mathematical functions: http://sympy.org/en/index.html http://sympy.org/en/index.html Quote: "SymPy is a Python library for symbolic mathematics." > Surely one need not explain the etymology of the name of a program in order to give a tutorial on it? It's useful to know what these terms mean. > ... but the author's advice appears to be quite specific to SymPy. Yes, no problem there. SymPy's abilities appear in IPython (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPython http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPython) and Sage (http://www.sagemath.org/ http://www.sagemath.org/) to some extent also -- I've been involved in these projects for years. My Sage tutorial: http://arachnoid.com/sage http://arachnoid.com/sage My IPython tutorial: http://www.arachnoid.com/IPython http://www.arachnoid.com/IPython My Python tutorial: http://www.arachnoid.com/python http://www.arachnoid.com/python
- tjl 12y ago
  SymPy doesn't appear in IPython, but IPython is aware of SymPy if it's installed so you can get nice printing of math in the notebook. Also, why link to the Wikipedia page for IPython and not the homepage? For most people, I'd actually recommend the use of the IPython notebook for doing any SymPy work as you can get the nicely formatted math and inline plots. If one is doing debugging, then you're better off in one of the Python IDEs. The PyDy guys who work on the sympy.mechanics module have done some nice IPython worksheets. The SymPy tutorial that's part of the SymPy docs isn't too bad and there's the SymPy live shell so one can try things out. While we've mostly moved away from IRC, we're now on Gitter and there's also the mailing list if you have specific questions. Note: I'm a SymPy developer (and a GSoC 2014 mentor).