[Axiom-developer] address@hidden: Re: [Frink] unit suggestion]

[root]

CY,

I'm on the Frink mailing list. Did you see this note?
In particular, are you aware of the http reference?


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To: address@hidden
Sender: address@hidden
Date: Fri, 09 Dec 2005 02:52:11 -0700
Subject: Re: [Frink] unit suggestion

.....<snip>.....

   By the way, you shouldn't have to do *any* modification of many files
containing normal mathematical notation to turn it into Frink notation.
 Frink is designed, more than any other language I know, to parse normal
mathematical notation and units correctly without any modification.  If
you follow, say, the SI (the International System of units, the modern
"metric" system) rules and style conventions (
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/rules.html ), Frink will usually parse
your equations without ambiguity or error.  Except where's there's
ambiguity in standard mathematical notation.

.....<snip>.....

   For a really interesting look into ambiguities in standard
mathematical notation, here's a really interesting talk by Stephen
Wolfram, the main person behind Mathematica:

http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/talks/mathml/index.html

   Especially read the section called "Computers" to read about
precedence, ambiguity in normal mathematical notation, and different
attempts to get around it.  No, really, read the whole thing.  It's a
really great article.  Mathematica and Frink take different tactics for
underlying representation, but the problem of ambiguity in normal
mathematical notation is the same.  Mathematica breaks normal SI
orthography, forcing you to write "Meter" instead of "m" or "meter",
etc, so Frink's a bit more natural.

.....<snip>..... 
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