Symbols, strings and case-sensitive Maxima

maclisp in 1968 did not have packages.
It seemed appropriate at the time to have the namespace of
macsyma variables be clearly distinguishable from the namespace of
the implementation language, but also accessible.  Hence the $ prefix
for macsyma-level objects.  Later the prefix % was introduced to distinguish
"noun" from "verb" forms of macsyma objects. This never worked very 
well, but
there are %integrate and $integrate items in lisp, etc.

maclisp in 1968 might not have had strings, as distinct from print-names
of symbols, either.

By the way, the Allegro CL "modern lisp" setting eliminates the need to
do inverse casing.  'foo prints as foo, not FOO. I hope Allegro's version
can take advantage of this. Otherwise, running it in "ANSI" mode will
solve the problem.


RJF


Donna and Dan Stanger wrote:

>What was the reason that strings were implemented this way in the first
>place?
>For that matter, why were maxima symbols implemented with a $ in front of
>them
>as well?
>Dan Stanger
>
>James Amundson wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Everyone,
>>
>>Now that the new case sensitivity scheme has been implemented, I see a
>>problem that I did not anticipate. In the new scheme, symbols are stored
>>in inverted case. Fine. Some care needs to be taken when printing
>>symbols, but that's it. Manipulations from Lisp are generally pretty
>>transparent -- after all, most people enter lower-case lisp code, only
>>to have it stored in upper case. The problem is in the way Maxima treats
>>strings: Maxima strings are really symbols. That means that strings are
>>also stored in inverted case. I think most people will find that pretty
>>counter-intuitive. It is also not the way Lisp operates in general.
>>
>>Do we need to start treating strings as strings? I wasn't planning to do
>>that at this point. I am just starting to think about the problem, so I
>>don't have an answer. It would be helpful if others started thinking
>>about this problem, too.
>>
>>--Jim
>>
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>>
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