Symbolica 2.0: Programmable Symbols for Python and Rust

(symbolica.io)

130 points | by mmastrac 2 days ago ago

11 comments

  • mkl 13 hours ago ago

    Past discussion (2 years ago, 119 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40297423

    This software does symbolic maths, and it's commercially licensed. The site still seems to be lacking comparisons to other computer algebra systems.

    The project is unrelated to this other Symbolica that does symbolic code execution, despite the similar sounding brief descriptions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28443587

    • lcnbr 12 hours ago ago

      There is at least one benchmark on the main page https://gist.github.com/benruijl/3c53b1b0aea88b978ae609e7369.... And although it would be nice if it was open source, it is still a much nicer setup than Mathematica, as it is source available, (+ some parts are truely open source), is much faster, can be used in rust or python (so no obscure bundled language to learn), and the license lets you use one core for free (always).

  • adius 11 hours ago ago

    As an alternative, I’m working on reimplementing Wolfram Language/ Mathematica in Rust: https://woxi.ad-si.com/ A lot of Wolfram Language code just works already!

    • lcnbr 11 hours ago ago

      How does it compare performance-wise?

      • adius 11 hours ago ago

        For short scripts, it’s often faster because there’s less initialization overhead. In general, though, it largely depends on whether the functions you’re using already have optimized implementations in Woxi. That’s what I’m currently working on, so I’d appreciate any feedback on what doesn’t work for you yet!

  • timschmidt 3 hours ago ago

    I've been doing some symbolica-like things recently in the https://github.com/timschmidt/hyperreal ecosystem. Not a full CAS, just enough symbolic math to maintain precision through the calculations.

    Benchmarks against Symbolica and numerica here: https://github.com/timschmidt/hyperlattice/blob/main/benchma...

  • lcnbr 11 hours ago ago

    I’ve been a rust user of symbolica since 0.1 and it is insane how much nicer it is to use now.

    Builder patterns for constructing replacement rules (and now evaluators!), macros for namespacing symbols, and now the call trait to fill in for callables in rust.

    Not to mention the broad implementation of arithmetic on Atoms (the expression type of symbolica) with other std types and with symbols.

  • aboardRat4 8 hours ago ago

    Why not just Maxima, Reduce, or Cadabra2?

    • SPACECADET3D 5 hours ago ago

      Author of Symbolica here! If these packages work well for you, then just use them :) I don't have a lot of experience with using these tools, but the last time I tried the user experience isn't so great, because of lack of LSP support (no typing, autocomplete etc). It could have improved in the mean time. I believe the tools are also more oriented to polynomial algebra and no so much for manipulating general expressions.

  • breezybottom 6 hours ago ago

    Seems like a worthy successor to Sympy, although the license system might prevent it from reaching the same level of adoption.