Re: In search of cool Scheme

[Harvey J. Stein]

"Hans O. Lowe" <address@hidden> writes:

 > Sometime on Wednesday, Harvey J. Stein wrote:
 > 
 > > Don't forget to add in a macro to do:
 > > 
 > >    (let ((x 3) (u 4)) (eval (differentiate '(* x (sin u)))))
 > > 
 > 
 > I didn't mean for it to be evaluation. The intent was to demonstrate
 > simple symbolic manipulation--returning symbols as results, much like
 > what Alejo shared.

My point is that you get to be able to evaluate the derivative at
specific points for free.  In other languages you'd have to write an
evaluator to be able to use the symbolic derivative.

In scheme you just do something like (depending on your macro facility):

(define-macro (diff-fcn form . args)
   `(lambda args ,(differentiate form)))

Then you can do:

(define fprime (diff-fcn '(* x (sin x))) x u)

(fprime 3 4)


-- 
Harvey Stein
Bloomberg LP
address@hidden