In spite of having done some exercises, I still find it harder to understand exponential generating function deeply than ordinary generating function. Could someone explain it "deeply"? Or are there any articles on that?
Deep understanding on exponential generating function
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combinatorics
generating-functions
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0I suggest that you either read the book by Bergeron, Labelle and Leroux or that you ask a more precise question. The book might help to convince you that egfs are simpler than ogfs. http://books.google.com/books?id=83odtWY4eogC&printsec=frontcover&dq=labelle+species&hl=de&ei=Cc61TuDANsqWhQfGxOGaBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false – 2011-11-06
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0Hmm. The Wikipedia page on [symbolic combinatorics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_combinatorics) might be helpful, though I suppose you could say it's terse. No doubt user Qiaochu has some posts laying around somewhere or other on this topic. – 2011-11-06
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1I like "Generatingfunctionology" by Wilf. The 2nd edition can be downloaded from http://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/DownldGF.html. The 3rd edition is available from the publisher. – 2011-11-06
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1Chapter $3$ of Miklós Bóna’s *Introduction to Enumerative Combinatorics* gives a nice introductory sense of the respective contexts in which egf’s and ogf’s are useful. – 2011-11-06
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5Think of it this way: there are situations where the EGF is simple/easy to manipulate when the OGF is unwieldy or has no closed form, and vice-versa... – 2011-11-06
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3anon guessed correctly, [here's](http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/blog/10601) an old blog post by Qiaochu somewhat related to this. – 2011-11-06