It was a policy in the macsyma design that certain programs
which could perhaps result in a simpler answer would NOT
be used automatically because they could, in some circumstances,
take a very long time to complete. Factor() is one of
them. Factor could in some cases improve the appearance
of almost any command. In other cases it could do lengthy
and pointless calculations.
Another program that is often effective but not automatically
used is radcan.
Sometimes a flag is used to control the use of such programs
(solveradcan ?) but mostly this reflects the uncertainty about
what to do to make the program work, overall, more efficiently
and more effectively.
In this case, if the user can always call factor() on the result,
then I would advise not doing it. Calling the internal
simplify program (simplifya ...) may help, and is not too
expensive. Or it may do nothing, since all expressions are
run through simplifya before being returned to the user.
RJF
James Amundson wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-04-16 at 21:47, Juan Pablo Hierro Álvarez wrote:
>
>>Well, I have already tried Wolfgang Jenkner's patch and it works. The only
>>point to be made is that its results seem to lack a factor(%) on them.
>>
>
> Right. I have to confess it took me a moment to realize that the patch
> worked -- the result looks pretty clunky.
>
> Does it make sense to add an explict "factor" in the code when the
> relevant routine is called?
>
> --Jim
>
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