Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers • Hacker News Board

Re: Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers

#11

Post by awt » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 9:24 PM UTC

I like it. I'm always typing simple calculations into the search bar -- this is a great way to keep track of them.

Re: Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers

#12

Post by aardvark179 » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 9:37 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #6

This looks interesting, but I can't see myself using it on an ipad or phone. This is something I'd want to use on a desktop, with a keyboard, while multitasking with other programs. Edit: I'll keep it in the back of my head, and I might try it later.

Well luckily, "(and soon OS X app)."

Re: Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers

#13

Post by praeclarum » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 9:42 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #6

This looks interesting, but I can't see myself using it on an ipad or phone. This is something I'd want to use on a desktop, with a keyboard, while multitasking with other programs. Edit: I'll keep it in the back of my head, and I might try it later.

Hi I'm the author. Yep Mac is done and just being submitted for review. I just couldn't resist announcing the iOS version.

Re: Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers

#14

Post by ringmaster » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 9:43 PM UTC

In the Introduction, under functions:

  f = m*a
  f(20) = 20a

Which is ok, but then farther down:

  f(a) = m*a
  f(20) => 20a

This seems incorrect, since I was expecting m*20. On a separate page, this seems to work fine, though.

Otherwise, quite nice.

Re: Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers

#15

Post by praeclarum » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 9:45 PM UTC

scrumper wrote: post #4

Looks like an interesting halfway house between a text editor and a full-blown CAS like Mathematica (since I have a license, that's what I use as a scratchpad for this kind of thing). It also seems to overlap with Soulver, which is my go-to calculator on iOS. Cleverly, Calca appears to go a bit further than even MMA by back-filling changed definitions, almost like functional reactive programming. This is neat and som…

Hi I'm the author. I took a lot of inspiration from Soulver. I basically wanted a smarter Soulver with more programming constructs and better treatment of undefined variables. Hope you like it and OS X version will be out in a couple weeks.

Re: Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers

#16

Post by praeclarum » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 9:47 PM UTC

ringmaster wrote: post #14

In the Introduction, under functions: f = m*a f(20) = 20a Which is ok, but then farther down: f(a) = m*a f(20) => 20a This seems incorrect, since I was expecting m*20. On a separate page, this seems to work fine, though. Otherwise, quite nice.

Bug in the doc. :-) just ran on the device and got the expected:

    f(a) = m*a
    f(20) => 20m

Re: Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers

#17

Post by Osmium » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 9:48 PM UTC

frsandstone wrote: post #5

Glad to see Soulver [1] has some competition. [1] http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/

I absolutely love Soulver, but I think it's trying to achieve a subtly different aim. Soulver is a lot more focused, and definitely more a calculator (albeit one re-designed for the modern era) than a text editor.

What I'd really like to see is something like this, but with in-line typesetting. Similar to the Markdown editors where when the line is active and you're editing it you see the raw text, but when you move off to another line you see the typeset mathematics. Because at the moment, it's just so much quicker and easier to think with pen and paper when you can actually write and read correct notation, rather than a monospaced-ASCII-fascimile...

Re: Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers

#18

Post by omaranto » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 10:10 PM UTC

bigd wrote: post #2

interesting, but how much is this different from ipython notebooks?

This app has automatic re-evaluation when a something changes, like a spreadsheet; ipython notebooks do not.

Re: Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers

#19

Post by rwissmann » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 10:33 PM UTC

praeclarum wrote: post #13

ori_b wrote: post #6

This looks interesting, but I can't see myself using it on an ipad or phone. This is something I'd want to use on a desktop, with a keyboard, while multitasking with other programs. Edit: I'll keep it in the back of my head, and I might try it later.

Hi I'm the author. Yep Mac is done and just being submitted for review. I just couldn't resist announcing the iOS version.

+1 to this. Would really like to try this out on the desktop.

Looks quite powerful already. With a few more standard probability/ and statistics-related functions I could see this becoming an excellent tool for finance and consulting work.

Re: Calca iOS - Mathematical text editor for engineers

#20

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 11:12 PM UTC

Is there anything like this for stats? I remember watching my then girlfriend in the throes of her thesis, having to tweak and re-run a Stata script again and again and again.

Also, for seriously complicated work, maybe a desktop all in one touch screen could be useful, so long as it's oriented more horizontally than vertically.