[Edu-sig] Goofing with Groups

[Kirby Urner]

A Math Forum thread anchored at:

http://www.mathforum.com/epigone/mathedu/swexprundwand

is one we might call "Goofing with Group Theory" in that
it's written as a cascade of error corrections -- but 
with each post getting closer to a fun little implementation 
of permutations and related operations, as typically 
found in group theory tomes.

It attracted the attention of Ed Dubinsky, who is, I've 
learned, a long time exponent of "math through programming" 
(my lineage as well), harkening back to the SETL language, 
which perhaps had its hey day awhile back (but in some 
years, maybe we'll be looking back on Python in the same 
whistful way?).

Anyway, in this vibrant present, given I travel light 
with only "carry on" modules (no major Python apps to my 
name), I decided to move to the bleeding edge this morning, 
somewhat impulsively, and blew away all my Pythons to go 
with the newest alpha 2.1.  

So now of course Numeric and PyOpenGL are busted (meaning 
PyGeo is down for the count) -- but I'm sure I'll get all 
my fave toys back in working order one of these days soon 
(probably I'll just go back and grab 2.0 again, now that 
I've realized the cost of upgrading -- I've got room for 
both under the same roof).

Kirby

PS:  Anyone out there using SETL?  The docs say UNIX and
DOS, don't mention Linux and Windows, and so are showing
their age.  Not object oriented, designed to work with
sets as a high level data structure, with interesting 
constructors for defining 'em, operators for combining 
'em.