Ebook: Squinting at power series

Data streams are an ideal vehicle for handling power series. Stream
implementations can be read off directly from simple recursive equations
that define operations such as multiplication, substitution, exponentiation,
and reversion of series. The bookkeeping that bedevils these algorithms
when they are expressed in traditional languages is completely hidden
when they are expressed in stream terms. Communicating processes are
the key to the simplicity of the algorithms. Working versions are
presented in newsqueak, the language of Pike’s ‘‘squint’’ system; their
effectiveness depends critically on the stream protocol.