Problem Solving Environments and Symbolic Computing

ion, representation, communication : : : : : : : : : : 29 5.5 System and human interface design issues : : : : : : : : : : : 31 5.6 Miscellany : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 32 6 Acknowledgments 33 Abstract What role should be played by symbolic mathematical computation facilities in scientific and engineering "problem solving environments"? Most observers agree with us that in conjunction with numerical libraries and other facilities, symbolic computation should be useful for the creation and manipulation of mathematical models, the production of custom numerical software, and the solution of certains classes of mathematical problems that are difficult to handle by traditional floating-point computation. Even further, though, symbolic representation and manipulation can potentially play a more central role -- with more general representations a program can naturally deal with computational objects of a more general nature. Numerical, graphical, and other..