I think that what is needed is the construction of a new top-level design
(or alternatively, looking at the design in the commercial Macsyma, or in
Mathematica or in Maple).
There are a number of areas in which thinking "outside the box" may be
worthwhile.
For example, if someone asks for integrate(exp(0.43*x)*(3.4+x^1.2),x,
0.2,1.23)
he probably wants a numerical integral.
Detection of symmetries, by which some integrals can be simplified,
sometimes without doing
any integration at all. (e.g. sin(x) from -a to a).
Distinguishing between antiderivatives and definite integration where
treatment of singularities
emerges.
Just as Mathematica and Maple learned from Macsyma (some things) I think
that Maxima can use those systems as models of what can be done (and what
errors to try to avoid).
RJF
> -----Original Message-----
> From: maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu
> [mailto:maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu] On Behalf Of Detlef Schmicker
> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 8:14 AM
> To: Robert Dodier
> Cc: Stavros Macrakis; maxima at math.utexas.edu
> Subject: Re: [Maxima] Integration has problems with sums
>
> I will do this. I have to write some other bug reports, we discussed a
> while ago. It's just I did not feel familar enough with maxima for
> writing this bug reports.
>
> How do you sort the bugs? I think there are a couple of bugs for
> integration. In case somebody wants to fix one of them, he possibly
> should know of all the bugs. Therefore it might be not a good idea to
> handle them unsorted via
> (http://sourceforge.net/projects/maxima/bugs) ?!
>
> Detlef
>
> Am Montag, den 25.06.2007, 08:57 -0600 schrieb Robert Dodier:
> > On 6/25/07, Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > The integrate routine surely handles the general case of
> sums already, there
> > > is simply some glitch so that it is not handling this
> particular case.
> > > Papering over the glitch by another layer of heuristics
> which duplicate the
> > > work it is already supposed to be doing seems like a bad idea.
> >
> > In that case maybe the problematic example should be
> > reported as a bug.
> > Detlef, if you have time, maybe you can make a bug report.
> > (http://sourceforge.net/projects/maxima/bugs)
> >
> > best
> > Robert
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Maxima mailing list
> Maxima at math.utexas.edu
> http://www.math.utexas.edu/mailman/listinfo/maxima
>