3 ms·

"I started on [Lisp] during late summer when I was at IBM and I decided to write a program for differentiating algebraic expressions. What I noticed is that I c

"I started on [Lisp] during late summer when I was at IBM and I decided to write a program for differentiating algebraic expressions. What I noticed is that I could write conditional expressions, which I'd already used in those legal move routines for the chess program and that they could be used to embody the rules that were given in the calculus text, in an extremely direct form. Differentiation of algebraic expressions was the leading example that led to the functional form of Lisp programs." I'm not very familiar with Lisp. Does anyone have a solid enough idea what he's talking about here to be able to give possible concrete examples?

munificent 12y ago
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthy_Formalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthy_Formalism
btilly 12y ago
See https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-16.html#%_sec_2.3.2 https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-16.htm... for sample code demonstrating how to implement symbolic differentiation in Lisp.
pmcjones 12y ago
The original AI memos at MIT show almost step-by-step how McCarthy developed Lisp. Here's the first, which includes symbolic differentiation as an example: http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/MIT/AIM-001.pdf http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/MIT/AIM-00... . For the rest, skip down to the Documentation and Papers section of http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/lisp15_family/#LISP_I_and_LISP_1.5_for_IBM_704,_709,_7090_ http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/lisp15_fam... .