On 10/5/07, van Nek <van.nek at arcor.de> wrote:
> Is it possible to have a+b => a+b as the default (without calling ordergreat)?
I believe that the motivation for the current ordering (reverse
alphabetical in sums, alphabetical in products) is that letters at the
end of the alphabet (x,y,z) often represent variables, while letters
at the beginning of the alphabet (a,b,c) often represent constants or
parameters. Users probably want to see
c*x^3 + b*x + a
rather than
a + x*b + x^3*c
We could of course define pretty much any order we wanted. For
example, we could decide on the order w,x,y,z / p,q,r,s,...u,v /
a,b,...o. Of course, that would make the pattern less obvious to the
user. I don't know whether that matters.
-s