--- Richard Fateman <fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> We could, I suppose, propose a new type (e.g. using CLOS) which would
> be maxima number, and rewrite all the code that tests for number to
> use this instead.
Ah, CLOS comes to Maxima at last :-). How big a change would that be?
> Note that some operations like GCD, LCM, do not work on all such
> numbers, at least officially, so we might, within the notion of
> number, distinguish those that are members of the real, complex,
> rational .. fields; those that are in the ring of integers,
> members of finite fields [though they look just like integers],
> maybe Euclidean domains, unique factorization domains etc.
> This begins to look like Axiom.
Wouldn't being able to check for such things be a good ability to have
in general? That way someone implimenting an algorithm can have it
work only with types of numbers known to be handled correctly, and the
routine can be made gradually more robust if there is desire/need. That
might be a simple way to avoid giving answers in cases where a routine
isn't general enough to be valid in some domains
CY.
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