On 2012-10-25, Volker van Nek <volkervannek at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am working on a package for Galois Fields. I nearly finished coding the
> functions but unfortunately at the moment most of them are not documented.
Well, in a sense that's good, since I'd like to suggest changing the
name of the function.
> (%i2) gf_irr_p(x^4+x+1, 2);
> (%o2) true
>
> which means that x^4+x+1 is irredicible over F2,
I'd like to suggest spelling out "irreducible" in this function name.
Maxima has a tremendous number of functions and variables and it is hard
to keep track of them all, so spelling out names makes Maxima as a whole
more comprehensible, especially for names which are not widely used.
It's OK to use abbreviations for commonly-used names. In this case, I
think it's OK to abbreviate Galois field as gf. (Also, 'GF' is a typical
abbreviation anyway.)
So the name I'll suggest is gf_irreducible_p or maybe gf_irreduciblep.
Volker, thanks very much for your work on the Galois fields package.
best
Robert Dodier