Hi!
In many places in Maxima manual uses terms "atom" and "symbol".
It is clear both these Maxima terms have Lisp origin and thus
symbol stands for something which is usually called identifier
in other computer languages. On the other hand atom is something
more general and embraces symbols, strings and numbers (at least).
But I see that in many-many places Maxima manual uses term atom
in the context where actually is appropriate.
See for example recent new description of
assignment operator in Operators.texi (Maxima CVS).
It seems to me we should make more clear distinction
between atoms and symbols and change wording in the
manual accordingly.
With best regards,
Vadim Zytnikov
--
Vadim V. Zhytnikov
<vvzhy at mail.ru>
<vvzhy at netorn.ru>