>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Dodier <robert.dodier at gmail.com> writes:
Robert> Barton,
Robert> About apropos --
Robert> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1602849&group_id=4933&atid=104933
Robert> apropos searches the :maxima package for symbols containing
Robert> a substring. (At present "containing" means only "beginning with".)
Robert> Isn't this just a kluge to find variables & functions -- doesn't ? foo
Robert> (i.e. describe("foo")) do that better? What happens if useful
Robert> symbols are in other packages? Why are we looking for symbols,
Robert> anyway -- symbols don't correspond exactly to interesting items,
Robert> and Maxima has more than a few superfluous symbols, and if
Robert> they're undocumented, just knowing that they exist is not very useful.
Robert> I think we should just cut apropos. It has more than 1 problem, and
Robert> describe does the same thing better. If someone really wants it,
Robert> they can always do :lisp (apropos-list 'foo :maxima).
But describe won't find user-defined functions will it?
Perhaps apropos should become equivalent to Lisp's (apropos-list "foo"
:maxima)? If so, we should probably also change the output so that
only maxima symbols, i.e., those starting with & are returned.
Ray