Fw: writing programs
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg13472] Fw: [mg13417] writing programs
- From: "Clemens Frey" <Clemens.Frey at uni-bayreuth.de>
- Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1998 02:33:33 -0400
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
-----Urspr|ngliche Nachricht----- Von: Clemens Frey <clemens.frey at uni-bayreuth.de> An: John M. Dlugosz <john at dlugosz.com> Datum: Freitag, 24. Juli 1998 11:13 Betreff: Re: [mg13417] writing programs > >Hi John! > >What about reading a book first ? (RTFM/RTFFAQ) >If you want to program, read Maeder. > >Try to understand some basic principles about Mathematica before transferring >this-and -that from other languages into Mathematica. This won't work, at its best, >it will work badly. > >Some basic insights: > >- You can program Mathematica in whatever style you want: functional, procedural, >object-oriented, list-oriented, pattern-matching... but there are BIG >differences in performance; prefer working on expressions (not lists, as >lists are expressions) as a whole instead of on their parts (so try to avoid >recursive things...) >- Always remember: You are working on expressions, WHATEVER you do: A list >is List[...], a=2 is nothing else than Set[a,2] >- neither ';' nor a blank line are separators like in C. ';' just prevents >Mathematica from producing output >- Think about what you are about to do. If you want to define a function, do >it. If you want to evaluate the function, do it. But not all at the same >time. These incremental things (defining and remembering) are nice stuff, >but it's not at all the point in Mathematica. > >Clemens > >