To be argumentative :) Certainly there are implementation limitations. For
example, I would expect something to break, perhaps in a very bad way, if we
set up a function call with some number of arguments -- I'm thinking 100,000
or 100,000,000 or 4,000,000,000. So we're not really fixing it, just
moving it into the distance. We are an imperfect model of math--
RJF
> -----Original Message-----
> From: maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu
> [mailto:maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu] On Behalf Of Stavros Macrakis
> Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 8:22 AM
> To: Robert Dodier
> Cc: maxima at math.utexas.edu; Fabrizio Caruso; Barton Willis
> Subject: Re: [Maxima] apply(matrix,...) fails
>
> On 9/29/06, Robert Dodier <robert.dodier at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/28/06, Barton Willis <willisb at unk.edu> wrote:
> > The limitation of apply('matrix, ...) comes from the
> > Lisp you are using....
> Well, this behavior falls into the category of features
> which may
> as well be bugs. By default GCL allows 64 function
> arguments max.
> I'm pretty sure we need to rework matrix (and maybe
> other functions
> which take an arbitrary number of arguments) so that the user
> is much less likely to bump into this.
>
>
> I agree. If the underlying Lisp has a silly limitation, we
> should code around it, not expose it to the Maxima user.
>
> -s
>
>
>