I like that you emphasized the utility for numerics, I think that this is likely to be a selling point for the SciPy crowd. I think that it's correct to inform the reader about what symbolics are but I think that the first couple of sentences (which do this) could be stronger/more direct. Right now they sound conversational. It's not clear to me how to fix this though.
Maybe start with something like "SymPy is a computer algebra system. It provides easy access to a wealth of automated mathematics that helps programmers to reason about their problem producing more clear and efficient numeric solutions." and then go into what symbolics are? I would cut the top bullet point, e.g. - Why you should care about symbolic mathematics, even if you are only interested in doing numerics. - How symbolic mathematics can help you solve problems more effectively I have a pretty cynical view about people when they're reading text though (perhaps this comes from teaching freshmen :)) As a result sentences that carry more than one idea seem dirty to me. Hope this helps, -Matt On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 6:01 PM, Aaron Meurer <asmeu...@gmail.com> wrote: > Here is the detailed abstract I have so far for a talk for SciPy. Any > suggestions are welcome. The deadline is April 1 (probably 5 PM central or > thereabouts). I roughly based it on the matplotlib talk from last year > http://conference.scipy.org/scipy2013/presentation_detail.php?id=211. > > Symbolic computation deals with manipulating mathematical expression > symbolically (as opposed to numerically). For instance, representing > sqrt(2) without evaluating it is symbolic: representing 1.41421 is numeric. > Most software that deals with mathematical expressions symbolically are > called computer algebra systems, or CASs for short. SymPy is a computer > algebra system written entirely in Python. > > In this talk, we will look at > > - Why you should care about symbolic mathematics. Even if you are only > interested in doing numerics, how can symbolic mathematics help you to > solve your problems more efficiently and/or effectively? > - Some of the design decisions that have guided SymPy, such as why we > chose Python to write SymPy, and the importance of being able to use SymPy > as a library. > - How to solve some basic problems in SymPy. > - How to interface SymPy with popular numeric libraries, like NumPy. > > Additionally, we will look at the most interesting recent developments of > SymPy, and will also discuss some of our plans for the future. > > Finally, we will discuss some of what has made SymPy a success, both as a > software product, and as a community. > > Aaron Meurer > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sympy" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to sympy@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sympy. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAKgW%3D6K3OmDsdApN%3DOEvFrRQ4ohEQ1npVfwgUsyxd-K-TLaLOA%40mail.gmail.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAKgW%3D6K3OmDsdApN%3DOEvFrRQ4ohEQ1npVfwgUsyxd-K-TLaLOA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sympy@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sympy. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAJ8oX-EKtRvNmb8SnyAxUaV%3D3m3_%3D2kfe%3D%3DKRsPKj13_bUSBOA%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
