It is an interesting problem:
1. You can document the Maxima system, how it works and how people
use it.
and/or
2. You can try to figure out a different approach to using
a computer algebra system that is compatible with Maxima, but
is more robust. (Leaving out some commands from documentation!)
and/or
3. You can build a different CAS that "forbids" certain
kinds of usage to force people to compute a certain way.
So describing ev is fine with version 1. I would prefer
version 2., but that requires more work. And maybe
we should just forget this for now.
Ultimately there
may be a "new" CAS corresponding to 3. This is not
so easy to do, as witnesses: Maple, Mathematica, Mupad, Axiom...
RJF
David Ronis wrote:
> My own 2 cents; ev has been around since the early MIT macsyma days,
> and is used all over the early manuals (I actually have one from the
> 70's somewhere). It's useful when you're pushing the limits of what you
> can do with a large compilcated expression, although to be sure you
> can do similar things with subst; nonetheless, ev seems simpler to
> use.
>
> David
>
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