Case-sensitivity goals, policy and implementation

James Amundson writes:

>Everyone,
>
>I would like to present a slightly modified plan for case sensitivity in
>Maxima. Even though we have already discussed this subject at great
>length, I believe a little more discussion is warranted. The change in
>case-sensitivity is something we should do only once, so it is important
>that we end up with a plan that will stand the test of time.
>
>First, let me state the goals of the new plan:
>
>1) Maxima should make it as easy as possible to represent mathematical
>expressions used in hand calculations.
>
>2) Maxima's behavior with respect to case should be simple enough to
>easily explain to users familiar with contemporary programming languages
>and consistent with basic software engineering principles.
>
>3) Maxima should continue to interact well with ANSI Common Lisp.
>
>(These goals could probably be stated more clearly, but I don't think
>it's worth spending a week working on wording.)
>
>To sum up a long conversation that I do not wish to revisit, the problem
>with the current implementation is that it fails to meet goal (2). The
>case-guessing logic in the current Maxima can lead to surprising
>behavior. One such surprise showed up just this week in seemingly minor
>additions to the test suite.
>
>Originally, I proposed a new policy whereby Maxima would be totally case
>sensitive. The implementation was to involve extensive use of quoting,
>e.g., |$integrate|, in the lisp source. As I recall, Raymond Toy's
>reaction to this was "yuck." Having tried typing ||'s everywhere for a
>while, I see his point. I now agree that this policy/implementation
>combination would conflict with goal (3) above.
>
>I would like to propose a modified policy. Maxima would be totally case
>sensitive, *however* all built-in functions would be addressable as
>either all lower case or all upper case. E.g., the cosine function could
>be written as "cos" or "COS". "Cos", "coS", "CoS", etc. would all be
>distinct functions.
>
>  
>
Seems as a reasonable compromise.  Just an idea -
maybe we should keep a list of "system" functions.

-- 
     Vadim V. Zhytnikov

      <vvzhy@mail.ru> 
     <vvzhy@netorn.ru>