On Mon, 5 Oct 2009, Stavros Macrakis wrote:
< Yes, it is accurate. You could also show the same thing with '+', which
< might motivate the behavior better:
<
< 1+2.0 => 3.0
< '(1+2.0) => 3.0
< '(x+1+2.0) => x+3.0
These examples muddy the water, because they clearly are
'simplifications'. There is some arbitrary line that separates a
'simplification' from an 'evaluation' (e.g. in your examples above, one
can say that the '+' function is being evaluated.). I was trying to
find the line, because it is not where I would naively put it.
<
< Note that in the last case, there is no subexpression (subtree) 1+2.0 which
< could be a separate function call.
<
< I think this all belongs to a section on simplification in general, which
< clarifies that x+1+2.0 == "+"(x,1,2.0) and that Maxima applies
< simplification to all mathematical operators. The section should also
< cross-reference pattern-matching as a way of users' defining simplifying
< mathematical functions.
Yes, this sounds like an excellent idea. The manual, at the moment,
suffers from the problem that it is well-nigh impenetrable to
non-acolytes. This is especially true of the sections on simplification
and pattern-matching. Leo
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