I would like to test a short program I wrote.



except for some bugs it runs fine on GCL rc3...

(bug: 

			    [  0    1   2 ]
			    [		  ]
(D4) 	        set_element([ - 1   0   3 ], 1, [ 0  a  2 a ])
			    [		  ]
			    [ - 2  - 3  0 ]


set_element is not a maxima function, to replace row 2 of the matrix m you
can say

m[2]:[x,y,z];

to replace column 2, I think you have to say

m:transpose(m);
m[2]:[x,y,z];
m:transpose(m);

or 

transpose(((m:transpose(D17))[2]:[x,y,z],m))

or loop over the elements? (I'm not sure how to properly deal with 
matrices in Maxima)

also

mat_nrows(NAME%),mat_ncols(NAME%),

are undefined...

Martin