Re:Calculus with Julia
by nl on Saturday May 18, 2024 @09:22PM
(#40403405)
Stick with Python. Try SymPy.
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I imagine a language with decent support for macros would be much much more ergonomic for symbolic computation. Even ignoring all the other pros & cons, just this one reason would push one strongly towards Julia, Lisp(s), Mathematica, etc for symbolic computation.
Re:Calculus with Julia
by ultrasounder on Saturday May 18, 2024 @09:46PM
(#40403507)
Great. Thanks. Any suggestions for a book or course that uses sympy to teach calculus( svc)?
Re:Calculus with Julia
by cfgauss2718 on Sunday May 19, 2024 @01:06AM
(#40404404)
Sympy is a poor tool to learn because it simply doesn’t scale to problems one most often encounters, even in schooling. Frankly, CAS are so general and unintelligent that problems with well known and elegant closed-form solutions, when presented to a system like sympy, result in an output which is often not even human readable - thousands of algebraic terms for instance to describe the equations of motion for a simple double pendulum.
Personally I have found that the best tools are 1) a firm grasp of elementary calculus (differential, series, and integral) and 2) exposure to simple numerical methods that apply to a broad range of problems.
Armed with this knowledge, in my opinion, Julia is a far superior language to python and its package ecosystem has a brighter future. Indeed, the language has been built with a focus on mathematical modeling and efficient numerical computation. It is a more natural starting point for those with an interest in mathematical modeling and engineering science, and will serve anyone who learns it better than python+numpy+sympy+scipy.
Re:Calculus with Julia
by terribleperson on Monday May 20, 2024 @09:14PM
(#40422929)
As someone who's used Python but not Julia - when you say package ecosystem has a brighter future, does that include not needing several versions of Julia installed on my PC?
That might sell me alone.