Hello Stavros, you wrote, quoting me:
> > My vote is for an implementation of linear programming or
> > singular value decomposition or something like that.
>
> How much can you do with LP or SVP in a symbolic context?
LP, at least, often arises as the statement of a story
problem of some kind. As soon as the boss says,
"What if the price of widgets is unknown?"
it becomes a symbolic problem.
Granted, a symbolic solution to an LP problem could well
be messy. But that's why we want a computer to do it.
A symbolic solution of an LP problem would make it easier
to study the qualitative effect of changing some parameters
on the solution.
As for SVD, I'm like to see a function to compute a symbolic
solution on the general principle that what Maxima can do
numerically it should also do symbolically. But a purely
numerical SVD function is doubtless of greater interest.
Translating something via f2cl as Raymond Toy suggested
sounds like a good idea to me.
For what it's worth,
Robert Dodier
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