[Haskell-cafe] Converting typeset mathematics into Haskell ?

[Richard O'Keefe]

On Aug 22, 2009, at 11:49 AM, Mark Wassell wrote:
> Think about how you would convert this into Haskell. You might then  
> find yourself wondering why you have to convert it into Haskell at  
> all.

But very quickly you realise that it is because a lot of
mathematical notation is heavily ambiguous and requires
fairly sophisticated N.I. to parse correctly.

[N.I. = natural intelligence.  I don't know how to program
a computer to do it.]
                                 -1
For example, if x is a number, x   is its reciprocal.
But if x is a function, it's the inverse function.

Some of the most appalling mathematical notation can be found
in the Correspondence Analysis community, where the meaning of
a subscript may depend not on the value of the subscript
expression but its spelling.  In that case, converting the
mathematics to Haskell would be an act of great charity not
for programmers but for _any_ mortals trying to make sense of
the formulas.