This post is based on my answer to the question “Royal way to learn algorithmic/computational/computer algebra” asked at Mathematics Q&A site by Jakob Werner. The questions asks for a book recommendation, and then more specifically asks whether is it important to have a book focusing on one CAS explicitly; which CAS to decide for; where does the programming experience come from; and how to check the written code is good.

The background described in the question is not uncommon - with the growth of computational disciplines many researchers have to learn programming on the job, without any formal training during their degree studies. Below I will try to give some advice applicable to computational algebra.

In principle, one could be a researcher in algorithms without doing any actual programming. For example, one could study complexity of algorithms and their asymptotic behaviour which will be beyond any feasible computer implementations. On the other hand, programming skill would be an advantage. It may help in understanding how to present algorithms for their practical implementations, or to find worst case performance examples; it may allow to play with things to check facts and better understand the theory, and to find examples and counterexamples.

Now on the specific questions.

Is it important to have a book focusing on one CAS explicitly?

No, it’s not. A book dedicated to a particular CAS may not even exist in a relevant area. Books are certainly important, but not only they. Theoretical descriptions in the textbook could be quite high-level and not hinting at subtle aspects of their practical implementation. Code provided with textbooks may not run in the next version of the software. It is also important to look at manuals, teaching materials, comments in the code, or the code itself (provided the system is open source).

Which CAS to decide for?

It depends on your area of research, on problem(s) which you’d like to work on, and on availability on the relevant functionality in appropriate CAS. An important factor is being open source. Besides CAS, I recommend to learn at least one general purpose programming language, for example Python. It has a large community and a plenty of teaching materials available. If you may need to learn several CAS, it’s better to start to learn with the one which has a less steep learning curve, seems more usable, has active community, accessible teaching materials, etc. In no particular order, you may want to look at GAP, Macaulay2, SageMath, Singular, and others.

Where does the programming experience come from?

Reading existing code, preferably short and documented functions, is useful, but it’s not enough. As Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie said in the first edition of The C Programming Language in 1978, “The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it”. You need to actually practice in writing your own code. Take some algorithm and try to implement it from scratch. Check that the result matches theory and/or existing implementation. Indeed, why not to try to implement the Buchberger algorithm in Singular, or the orbit enumeration algorithm in GAP? You will not have to re-implement everything since the underlying computer algebra system will provide you with basic objects, so you will start with some higher level, and will learn a lot about its functionality in the process. Even if it will be not performing so well as the native one, that would be a useful exercise.

How to check if I have written good code?

I would reformulate it as “How to learn to write a good code” at try to use some good practices from the beginning. You can find some useful tips looking for reports from various “What makes good code good” discussions on the Software Sustainability Institute website here (for example, see here and there). I recommend to attend some Software Carpentry workshop to learn more about these practices. A typical workshop for beginners does not require prior knowledge of the tools used, lasts about two days, and covers UNIX shell, version control and programming with one of the languages (see the list of lessons here). It is “programming with language”, not “programming in language”, since the emphasis is on general programming practices, being taught with the help of a particular language. You can check for the future workshops in your region here.

In addition, it’s useful to follow mailing lists and Q&A sites for CAS of your interest, get in touch with the community of its users and developers (for example, at events like GAP days or SageMath days or at training events like such training schools). If the system has an issue tracker, perhaps some issues are labeled as newcomer-friendly (like we do in GAP here) so you may try to work on them and then get some feedback from developers.