The factor function is a little bit silly.

On Mon, 7 Apr 2008, Richard Fateman wrote:

> It might be intelligent to say "this is taking a long time. do you
> want to continue?"

Some care might be required here.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who
runs batch scripts that take a long time non-interactively, with
output redirected to a file.  It wouldn't be fun to come back the next
day and find Maxima sitting there waiting for user confirmation as to
whether to go ahead with the long calculation.

-- 

Thanks,

Dan