Re: Warsaw Univ. course, was Re: Work on Basic Mathematica Stephen!
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- Subject: [mg130984] Re: Warsaw Univ. course, was Re: Work on Basic Mathematica Stephen!
- From: David Bailey <dave at removedbailey.co.uk>
- Date: Fri, 31 May 2013 03:40:19 -0400 (EDT)
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On 28/05/2013 08:49, Richard Fateman wrote: > > I do not see any connection here. It is possible to write a linked list > in Mathematica and still use its evaluation. e.g. > consider using node[element,RestOfList]. Instead of [A,B,C] use > node[A,node[B,node[C,Nil]]]. A node here is like a lisp "cons" cell. > In fact there are other computer algebra systems written in lisp that > use lisp lists and have similar evaluation strategies to Mathematica. > Yes you could, and you might find it instructive to do this, because you would then see exactly why Stephen Wolfram chose to implement lists in a different way! Try using your implementation to implement some 1000 x 1000 matrix algebra! OK - perhaps you wouldn't want to use your new list implementation for linear algebra, but in that case, where would you want to use it? Lisp lists are expensive to use unless the algorithm is tailored to generate lists in reverse order, and consume them in forward order (OK you can reverse a Lisp list, but that consumes space for a copy, but random access is still inefficient). Since the Lisp language was designed very early on, I would imagine its list structure reflects the tiny memory spaces available at that time. Garbage collection of varying sized objects is more complex and tends to need some slack memory. The decision to implement lists the Mathematica way, has been amply vindicated in recent years. Because the mechanisms supplied to access lists are not skewed towards sequential access, it has been possible to produce packed arrays (and indeed sparse arrays) that work as drop in replacements for the equivalent list structures - with enormous performance gains. Mathematica also gains from the decision to make lists mutable - again this simplifies the design of algorithms and increases performance. Clearly Mathematica lists also score in they must help internally to avoid repeated evaluation. Clearly Mathematica must store some information in the head of every object to keep track of objects that need reevaluation, and you wouldn't want each list node to be bloated out in that way. Yes you could implement Lisp-style lists in Mathematica, and with a bit more effort, you could also supply them with a nice syntax for input/output, so try it and see how many people find them useful! David Bailey http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk
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- Re: Work on Basic Mathematica Stephen!
- From: paulmchale7@gmail.com
- Re: Work on Basic Mathematica Stephen!