> Currently, bessel_j(1,2) will produce a numerical result.
In Maxima 5.9.0.9beta2/gcl, it does NOT produce a numerical result,
and I think that is correct.
The general Maxima convention is that all operations on exact
quantities (integers, rationals, symbolic expressions) produce exact
results. Only operations on approximate numbers (floats, bfloats)
produce approximate results. That convention should be maintained.
-s
PS bessel(1,2) produces a float result, and I think that is incorrect.
(verbify(sin))(2) also produces a float result because of an
archaic/obsolete interpretation of verb/noun (true of all other
trig/hyp/arc functions, log, and gamma, but not of erf, jacobi_sn,
bessel_j, atan2, exp, sqrt).