Vectors, lists and multiline summations

[progo]

This package is the coolest! Ever since hearing about a mac app Soulver, I've yearned for a free literate calculator for linux. So thank you for having the vision of combining the powerhouse that is calc and making a well-working implementation. :)

I immediately made this helper function to have quick access to a quick scribble when needed.

  (defun pop-calculator ()
    (interactive)
    (switch-to-buffer (get-buffer-create "*literate-calc*"))
    (literate-calc-mode))

But now to the question. Please keep in mind that I am not a calc expert so I am partly thinking about a feature request but also like to hear about what calc the backend can do here without any further development.

I like making lists and summing them up. Traditionally a job for org tables or perhaps the ses-mode, I like the fluency of a list within free text.

But understandably we don't have a multiline support so we're left with these approaches:

a = 10 => a: 10
a = a + 10 => a: 20
a = a + 20 => a: 40

b = [1 2 4] => b: [1, 2, 4]

= a => 40
= vsum(b) => 7

Perhaps I just don't necessarily like the repeated use of the variable name. += would be an obvious idea to consider. I thought about other kinds of multiline supports for vectors but inline comments are valuable to me and now things would definitely get too complex and unpredictable.

Maybe the purpose of this ticket is just to say thanks for a great library.

[sulami]

Hey,

Sorry for sitting on this forever, busy days.

I'm also not a calc expert by any means, though this project has already taught me a lot about calc. It's not quite as concise, but vconcat exists to collect vectors.

x = [4 8 15] => x: [4, 8, 15]
y = [16 23 42] => y: [16, 23, 42]
z = vconcat(x, y) => z: [4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42]
= vsum(z) => 108

Actual multiline support would be hard to add, as LCM relies on a line-by-line evaluation model, which I would also like to keep because it is easy to test, and in the future could maybe even be done in parallel for better performance.