On 2012-11-25, Richard Fateman <fateman at eecs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> when I wrote tellsimp (etc) there were no "nouns". Everything
> internally started with a $.
> Is it a bug? well, if tellsimp(foo,bar) or tellsimpafter(foo,bar)
> operates by evaluating and simplifying
> foo, then wouldn't foo be changed to a noun, and that's where the
> simplification goes?
> But maybe that's not what happens.
tellsimp and tellsimpafter simplify their arguments, but do not evaluate
them. So the rule is attached to the operator of foo, not the operator
of foo's value. It has been like that for a long time, as shown by the
maxima-5.0 tarball dating to the 1990's which someone recently posted.
best,
Robert Dodier