Re: Handling branch cuts for hypergeometric functions

--- Raymond Toy  wrote:

> I would find it annoying not to have interactive queries.  

I'm of the same mind.  I like them.

> I guess I'm influenced by how Lisp works (or can work).  If I get 
> an error in Lisp, many times I'm offered a choice of how to 
> continue.  I can select the appropriate choice and keep going, 
> without having to go back and redo everything.  If, later on, I know 
> what the answer will be, I can instruct Lisp to always select the 
> desired choice without asking or I can just ignore the error, or 
> make it fatal.

Every time I think about interactive queries I'm reminded of a problem
we had to solve in solid state physics - I used Maxima, got asked one
question, and immediately got the useful answer when I responded. 
Somebody with Maple took several lines to get the same result.  I like
them also because they form an explicit "history of assumptions made."
 
> I don't particularly like the idea of maxima saying something is
> ambiguous and then producing nothing except a note.  Then I have to
> re-enter the expression again, after the appropriate assume
> statement, and then only to be asked yet another question, and so 
> on.  
> 
> It seems, though, that I am in the minority here.

Well, I guess I'm part of the minority too.  I always thought this was
a feature.

CY


		
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