Michel Van den Bergh <michel.vandenbergh <at> uhasselt.be> writes:
>
> > Hello Michel,
> >> Are you aware that of the syntax f('x):=... creates a function which
> >> does not evaluate x when called?
> > No, but I did know about f(x)::= which is the same I presume. Anyway
> > this is irrelevant for the example.
Hello, about this f(x)::= makes an extra evaluation (in lisp this is called
a macro, first you construct and expression using the language, and then you
evaluate that expression. So f('x) := and f(x)::= are very different.
I see that the new year begins with a lot of work trying to sanite the scope and
declarations. Perhaps, if anything clear come out, you would be so kind to
make a brief descriptions of the main points.
Good work.
A brief general reflexion:
I think that the problem is that there is a gap between the purpose of maxima
for the user and maxima for the designer. Sometimes the developers of maxima
are trying to guest what the common user is doing, perhaps this explain the
scope, looking for values or binding everywhere ... but developers need a finer
control, they don't want the system to be so clever.
An example of this look in the mailing-list for the op discussion:
Should it gives false on atoms or should it gives an error?
From an user point of view: don't give me errors, try to recover.
From a developer point of view: give me an error.
Anyway this gap requires you to pay a price.