Wiki article about maxima's treatment of arrays and functions?

My suggested approach to some of these issues is to provide a model for a
program that works, essentially deprecating certain features that you think
will be confusing. Especially if those features have been supplanted by
better features.  That way you don't have to go through a long explanation,
at least at that spot, why something is "bad". 

Thus I might recommend that it is good to separate your indeterminates from
your program variables. Maybe refer to a discussion of evaluation and scope
and such, somewhere else.

 Or why subst  is preferable to ev,  or how to extract pieces of an
expression using inpart rather than part or [].

RJF


> -----Original Message-----
> From: maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu [mailto:maxima-
> bounces at math.utexas.edu] On Behalf Of Michel Van den Bergh
> Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 1:16 AM
> To: maxima at math.utexas.edu
> Subject: Wiki article about maxima's treatment of arrays and
> functions?
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I was thinking of writing a wiki article on maxima's treatment of arrays
> and functions as this is
> conceptually very different from other languages (except Common Lisp). I
> wonder however if this would
> duplicate explanations already available elsewhere.
> 
> I originally confused the (in my opinion) strange behaviour of maxima
> with regard to arrays
> and functions with the lexical versus dynamic binding issue. Thanks to
> Richard's explanations I now see
> these two issues are distinct.
> 
> Since it took me a long time to understand this I assume it must be the
> same for other people new to maxima.
> I still think the decision not to store functions and arrays in the
> value cell was bad, but since that's the way
> it is now, it should at least be explained clearly.
> 
> Michel
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Maxima mailing list
> Maxima at math.utexas.edu
> http://www.math.utexas.edu/mailman/listinfo/maxima