taylor series, bfloat, zerop enhancements, something to think about, vs. Macsyma


On 01/04/2012 05:57 PM, Richard Fateman wrote:
> On 1/4/2012 8:42 AM, John Lapeyre wrote:
>> btw. I don't know if maxima has something like Head() or lisp's
>> type-of. It's useful to have a what_is_this() function.
> 
> what_is_this(x):=if ?atom(x) then ?type\-of(x)   else ?caar(x)

Mathematica would use this as well.

(defmfun $complexp (x)
  ($numberp ($substitute 1 '$%i x)))

  what_is_this(x):= if complexp(x)
       then 'complex elseif ?atom(x)
       then ?type\-of(x) else ?caar(x)$

But it's not clear that would be useful for maxima. Eg, if maxima used
native lisp complex numbers it would be natural.

> print_one_number_prec(x,p):=block([fpprintprec:p], print(x))$

 mixima Np() does this.

 But the return value, unless suppressed,
 is also displayed normally.

-- John Lapeyre