Hi Barton, you wrote:
> If you don't like interactive queries, you can
> suppress most (all?) of them.
No, assume_pos won't turn off all interactive queries.
There was an example of that in the recent thread
"Maxima problem with ASSUME_POS:TRUE;".
> I think the 'assume_pos' mechanism is dangerous.
> Maybe those of you that dislike interactive queries
> might like it better than I do.
Well, assume_pos doesn't do what one would expect it to,
and even if it did, it wouldn't be right, so I can't say
I'm in favor of that.
On the other hand if assume_pos worked like this --
(%i1) assume_something_but_let_me_know_what_it_is: true$
(%i2) integrate (x^a, x, 1, inf);
(%o2) if a < -1 then -1/(a + 1)
I might be more in favor of that. Of course if we have
unevaluated conditionals on hand, the returned expression
could cover all the bases instead of just one. The advantage
of following just one path (and this applies to both an
assume-like mechanism and to an interactive query) is
that Maxima doesn't spend time evaluating other outcomes.
While we're on the topic, even if the query were interactive,
a returned expression "if a < -1 then ..." could be useful,
as it carries some context around with it. I do realize that
carrying all the context for all results could be burdensome,
but maybe there could be some way to expose the context
on request.
For what it's worth,
Robert Dodier
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