Hi Vadim,
Thanks for taking the time to work out this proposal.
I'm in agreement on the whole & I just have a few quibbles.
About the object types --
> 1. Functions - functions (sin, cos, bessel...)
> 2. Special forms - similar to functions but handle arguments in some
> special nonstandard way (e.g. declare)
> 3. Symbols - %e, %i, %pi, inf ...
> 4. Option variables - variables whose value control Maxima behavior
> (e.g. logexpand).
> 5. System variables - usually read only variables which contain
> information
> about current Maxima state (e.g. functions).
> 6. Properties - named attributes of symbols.
> 7. Keywords - optional argument to function or special form which
> modifies its behavior.
> 8. Keyword forms - like keyword but more complicated in structure
> than
> 9. Operators - operators. Can be further subdivided into prefix,
> infix and postfix operators.
> 10. Packages - packages in share.
I'm inclined to lump together 1 & 2 -- I guess I don't see a
strong reason to consider declare, ev, etc as something other
than functions. Maybe 3 can be called "constants"? I think
"keyword" will be interpreted as "reserved word" (while, for,
then, etc) so maybe 7 should be called "special arguments" or
something. Or maybe each such symbol should just be discussed
in the context of the functions it applies to, since functions
can treat a symbol in different ways, so 7 could be omitted.
Same with 8. There aren't many operators, so I wouldn't split
them into prefix, etc. A list of share packages is a great idea.
So here is the list as I've revised it -- functions, constants,
option variables, system variables, properties, operators, packages.
> Dealing with 10 types of objects it is good idea to have
> a little more informative master index. Something like
>
> - abc (function) ........... 133
> - abcd (special form) ....... 90
> - abcd (keyword) ........... 200
>
> where each entry has type specifier in parentheses.
That makes sense to me. I don't see a problem with modifying
texinfo.tex to make an index like that.
We'll need to fix a bug in "describe" (it gets confused if
there are two distinct items with the same name) in order
to make this work. But that's a minor issue.
Hope this helps,
Robert Dodier
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