On 4/3/10 1:32 PM, Dieter Kaiser wrote:
> Am Samstag, den 03.04.2010, 11:10 -0600 schrieb Robert Dodier:
>
>> On 4/3/10, Raymond Toy <toy.raymond at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Ah, in lmdcls, it's pretty clear that unspecial is not supported on sbcl
>>> and openmcl. We need to fix this. (I think the best solution is not
>>> to have to do unspecials at all.)
>>>
>> The use of special variables in Maxima could be cleaned up a lot.
>> I wouldn't be opposed to anybody who wants to take on the task.
>> I am imagining stuff like: change names to use the *foo* convention,
>> replace special variables with lexical variables where possible,
>> perhaps wider use of CL packages to isolate symbols used in
>> different contexts. (If we did that stuff, I think we could do away
>> with unspecial entirely.)
>>
> Perhaps, some unknown and known bugs will vanish too, if we change the
> use of a lot of special variables.
>
> One of these variables is EXP. It is used a lot and it is declared to be
> special.
>
> Another variable I do not like to use is VAR. Here we have to change the
> implementation of schatchen or m2 to allow passing the value of VAR as
> an argument. Furthermore, a lot of test functions use the global value
> of VAR.
>
> I think there are a lot of places, where we should pass the value as an
> argument of the function.
>
I would be happy if we just renamed them as *var* and *exp* to make it
clear about their special nature. Same with all the other specials. Of
course $<foo> is always special, or should be if it's not already.
Ray