One small remark on this:
> Still, once you start becoming a heavy user of
> rational_to_continued_fraction or inverse_laplace_transform or
> generalized_factorial or even factor_polynomial, that quickly becomes
> annoying. Maxima does have the "alias" function which allows defining
> alternate names.
I almost always use Maxima through a "smart" interface
(TeXmacs, in my case), that allows
retrieving previous command lines and editing them. So I
very seldom have to re-type the long
names.
One thing that would help make long names easier to use is
command completion. In TeXmacs, it seems to be erratic (or
I'm missing something). I don't know about other
interfaces. Mathematica has long names, but
fully-implemented completion, and that makes life much easier.
Anyhow, I didn't know about "alias", that sounds very useful.
Kostas