defining functions in basin scripts

All,

I like Michael's proposed program. As I see it, the big "missing link"
is our inability to define basic functions of the form:
r=f(x,y,z)
in realtime.

Ideally, this would take the form of a constructor like:

f=function("x^2+sin(x)+y",x,y)
and could then be called on the client side using something like:
r=f(4,2)
or (and this is the main function), on the server side on vectors.

Now, Enrico is working on a number of primitive math functions for
basin_arrays (add, subtract, multiply, divide, raise to a power, and
presumably trig functions), which means, of course, that in principle,
our math function could simply be a matter of parsing the "function"
constructor such that the arguments are called in the correct order.

Or, as a very bad possibility, we could define ALL functions as a taylor
series expansion.

Bruce, this is clearly a solved problem with Maple, so what would you
suggest? I think that we will probably limit the complexity of the
functions to combinations of polynomials and trigonometric functions.
Anything else (e.g. Fourier convolutions, integrals, etc.) can be done
with a series of loops in python or direct calls to the FFT library.

Dave
Received on Fri Aug 19 13:15:16 2005