SymPy With Aaron Meurer

The podcast about Python and the people who make it great

January 31, 2016 01:03:06 72.61 MB Downloads: 0

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Summary

Looking for an open source alternative to Mathematica or MatLab for solving algebraic equations? Look no further than the excellent SymPy project. It is a well built and easy to use Computer Algebra System (CAS) and in this episode we spoke with the current project maintainer Aaron Meurer about its capabilities and when you might want to use it.

Brief Introduction

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We are recording today on January 18th, 2016 and your hosts as usual are Tobias Macey and Chris Patti
Today we are interviewing Aaron Meurer about SymPy

Interview with Aaron Meurer

Introductions
How did you get introduced to Python? – Chris
What is Sympy and what kinds of problems does it aim to solve? – Chris
How did the SymPy project get started? – Tobias
How did you get started with the SymPy project? – Chris
Are there any limits to the complexity of the equations SymPy can model and solve? – Chris
How does SymPy compare to similar projects in other languages? – Tobias
How does Sympy render results using such beautiful mathematical symbols when the inputs are simple ASCII? – Chris
What are some of the challenges in creating documentation for a project like SymPy that is accessible to non-experts while still having the necessary information for professionals in the fields of mathematics? – Tobias
Which fields of academia and business seem to be most heavily represented in the users of SymPy? – Tobias
What are some of the uses of Sympy in education outside of the obvious like students checking their homework? – Chris
How does SymPy integrate with the Jupyter Notebook? – Chris
Is SymPy generally used more as an interactive mathematics environment or as a library integrated within a larger application? – Tobias
What were the challenges moving SymPy from Python 2 to Python 3? – Chris
Are there features of Python 3 that simplify your work on SymPy or that make it possible to add new features that would have been too difficult previously? – Tobias
Were there any performance bottlenecks you needed to overcome in creating Sympy? – Chris
What are some of the interesting design or implementation challenges you’ve found when creating and maintaining SymPy? – Chris
Are there any new features or major updates to SymPy that are planned? – Tobias
How is the evolution of SymPy managed from a feature perspective? Have there been any occasions in recent memory where a pull request had to be rejected because it didn’t fit with the vision for the project? – Tobias
Which of the features of SymPy do you find yourself using most often? – Tobias