Problem with vect?



Generally, changing the syntax or semantics of an existing operator so 
that it is incompatible with previous usage is a bug.  Arguably one 
could have some kind of (say) lexical scope for syntactic extensions  like

  with_syntax (..redefine syntax here...) do ..... ;

or some commands
  enable_vect_syntax()
  ......
  disable_vect_syntax()

A simple workaround would be to use "sp"  for scalar product instead of 
"." in vect.

RJF


Robert Dodier wrote:

>On 11/22/06, palazzol at comcast.net <palazzol at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I have a valid program which breaks if I do a load("vect").
>>Does something in vect redefine the . operator to work differently?
>>    
>>
>
>Yes, vect redefines . to be the scalar product of two vectors.
>We (Maxima development team) should rework vect so that the
>scalar product is represented in some other way, and leave . alone.
>
>In the meantime ... I can't think of a simple workaround.
>I'll propose a revision of vect in the next couple of days.
>Of course, if someone else has a different approach I would
>be interested to hear about it.
>
>Robert Dodier
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>  
>