ChapterZero

I just finished grading the last two assignments for this semester: it took me more than 5 hours, but now I’m done until next year. On the other hand, I’m broke, because I was so busy studying for finals and doing research that I didn’t turn in my timesheets, so I’ve missed *3* paychecks!

Now I’m starting to look back into BasicCAS. I printed out the code a few days ago so I can refamiliarize myself with the product of my genius. I’ve also been reading Computing with Real Numbers with the intention of implementing an exact arithmetic background for BasicCAS. Not because I need to– there are a couple of C libraries out there I could call from Python– but because I’d like to learn the concepts behind it. I’ve read a significant portion of the paper, and I still don’t see how the structure they’re building (a system for manipulating digit streams based on linear fractional transformations) will lead to an exact arithmetic system. It’s a cliff-hanger!

I’m going to implement the arithmetic system in pure Python first, and then write it up in C so when BasicCAS is used in C-based Pythons there is the option for increased speed. I also intend to rework the parser to make it more Mathematica compatible.

Other than that, over the break I’m going to be working a lot on the DCA, since I finally have time. In fact, that’s what I’m off to do right now. It looks like the high pass channel may contain nothing but noise, so we may drop it from consideration in the algorithm.