how to pass the name of a variable as argument?

On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 12:00 PM, Robert Dodier <robert.dodier at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Bear in mind that, in Maxima, effectively ALL variables are global variables,
>  or, more precisely, global variables and local variables act the same.
>  All variables have dynamic scope, not lexical scope.

Yes, all variables have dynamic, not lexical scope.  But how does that
make all variables global?

>  As you doubtless know, dynamic scope can lead to subtle misbehavior.

Agreed.

>  A lexically-scoped user language could be very useful.

Maybe.

>  Instead of revising the existing Maxima language, at this point I think
>  the easiest way to get lexical scope is to run a different language
>  on top of Lisp.

Could you be more specific?  Are you thinking that Maxima expressions
would be somehow quoted so that mathematical variables/expressions and
programming variables/expressions would be distinct, e.g.

          taylor("sin(x)","x",0,5)  << where taylor is a Python function call

Many Maxima idioms depend on conflating programming and mathematical
variables, e.g.

          ex: x^3-1$
          factor(ex)        <<< ex is a programming variable, but x is
a mathematical variable
          ex, x=3           <<< hmm, is x a programming or a
mathematical variable?
          makelist(factor("x^i-1"),i,1,10) <<< i is a programming
variable, x a mathematical variable; how would we say this in Python?

Is the "i" here a mathematical or a programming variable?  If
programming, how does the mathematical system learn its value?
Something like

         makelist(factor("x^getval(i)-1"),i,1,10) ?

I just don't see what you have in mind.

          -s