Using "assume" for a counting operation may surprise some users by its
slowness.
a..b could be nothing more or less than a syntactic hack for nothing more
than makelist.
If you want hairy semantics, redefine makelist.
I think that consistency with Macsyma means consistency with a design that
has perhaps has had more professional thought than we may be willing to
commit to at the moment. It is not just a matter of portability of programs.
Though that too is a plus.
-----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Dodier [mailto:robert.dodier at gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 6:57 AM
> To: Barton Willis
> Cc: Stavros Macrakis; fateman at EECS.Berkeley.EDU; Maxima List
> Subject: Re: [Maxima] a .. b
>
> On 6/20/08, Barton Willis <willisb at unk.edu> wrote:
>
> > >After that, we can choose whether a..b means
> > > A) the integers s.t. a<=x<=b
> > >or
> > > B) all x s.t. x=a+i and a<=x<=b (where i is an integer)
> >
> > I converted to plan 'B' --- it's consistent with Macsyma, I think.
>
> I think consistency with commercial Macsyma (or Maple or Mma
> or whatever) is a very minor consideration. Maybe some argument can
> be made for plan B, but just being the same as Macsyma isn't enough.
>
> FWIW
>
> Robert Dodier
>