I think that Bill Gosper (who wrote nusum) uses this idiom frequently.
The code library from Macsyma probably has a bunch of stuff that would
cease to work.
Just sayin'.
On 6/12/2013 10:52 AM, Robert Dodier wrote:
> On 2013-06-09, Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>> No function in Maxima should substitute variable or function values, or
>> apply functions, unless that is its principal and explicit definition (e.g.
>> "apply"). So the integrate example is certainly a bug.(*)
>> (*) This also suggests that subst(lambda([x]...),...) should *not* in
>> principle perform the lambda application.
> Agreed.
>
>> Not sure whether "but it's so handy" is a good enough excuse....
> Well, it appears that it's not widely used, and the only instances that
> I found (in nusum) are probably easily fixed up. Given that, are you in
> favor of changing subst(lambda([x]...),...) to not evaluate lambda
> expressions? (As I mentioned before, the change is actually needed in
> SIMPLIFYA.)
>
> best
>
> Robert Dodier
>
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