I do a lot of heavy math programming. Often there is a need to check some calculations "by hand", specifically while debugging. Do have good experience with some calculator tool (preferably not with gui buttons like windows calc). It could even be a programming language I guess, such as matlab. I like matlab, but I'm looking for something more lightweight here. Any ideas?
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A:
I like jumping into Python whenever I want to run some quick math calculations, and there are nice numeric libraries for the language if you have complex work to type through. Consider what you need.
If you use the latest version of Python (3.1), you may want to use this updated tutorial for Python's math.
Noctis Skytower
2010-08-17 11:49:02
Awesome, such a good idea. I did not know there was such a command line client without the need to write long scripts. I will start use python. Then I can do simple string processing testing there as well.
Petter
2010-08-18 12:19:34
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A:
Python's got a decent math library, so you could use a Python shell - there's always numpy if you need more specialised things too.
There's even a section of the documentation on Using Python as a Calculator.
Dominic Rodger
2010-08-17 11:49:06
+1
A:
GNU's bc is a really advanced arbitrary-precision calculator, using a line-by-line "shell" interface which makes my work quite quick. It's written for Linux-based OSes but there's a Windows port:
Delan Azabani
2010-08-17 11:51:23