The limit package, and the definite integration (via
contour integration) was written by Paul S. Wang, now
at Kent State University. The Taylor series was written
by Richard Zippel, most recently at DEC/Compaq/HP labs
in Cambridge MA.
I believe that the commercial Macsyma has a rewritten
limit package. Since it has some major heuristic
components, it might not hold up so well under stress
(like asking it questions not about real functions).
I think Taylor is better defined and
more likely to be correct, though it may have bugs.
I think the "quotient is not exact" bug should be
stamped out. What is the smallest example exhibiting
that? I guess there is a way of searching through the
bug reports, but I haven't figured it out.
RJF
Robert Dodier wrote:
> hello,
>
> limit and taylor, between the two of them, account for a
> substantial fraction of the known bugs in maxima.
> i wonder if we can formulate some kind of long-range
> plan to rework or replace those functions.
> i realize it's likely a very arduous task, but given that
> those are fairly common operations, it might considerably
> increase maxima's appeal to fix them.
> i don't have any clear ideas about how to proceed.
>
> for what it's worth,
> robert dodier
>
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