Sailing the SCHOONSCHIP

The use of symbolic computation is still in its infancy in the sense that few practicing scientists employ it in the course of their work. Yet such tools can be exceptionally powerful on several fronts for 1) obtaining representations for complex formulas that are suitable for further numerical evaluation by machine, 2) evaluation of complex formulas requiring a tortuous simplification procedure, 3) experiments with simple formulas for which quick results are wanted, and 4) generating case-dependent FORTRAN coding as primitive artificial intelligence drivers. Flowing with the spirit of the tutorial nature of this session on symbolic computation, this presentation focuses on the experiences, the challenges, and the frustrations of one who has made extensive use of the algebraic manipulator code SCHOONSCHIP, and, to a lesser extent, the REDUCE code