I have seen some applications around the internet where you can enter a string of characters and it will find the derivative equation for you.
Do these use the basic method of chain-rules, power-rules and such? Or is there a differnt method to differntiate for when using computers?

I am looking to make a derivative calc in VB.NET, and I am wondering how I should start off. I was thinking to make it work just like an equation-parser and break the equations down into simple strings and execute the differention steps...?

Thank You