>
>
> Why would you think it sets algexact at all? Barton said "it internally
> defaults algexact to true", which I suppose is his non-technical way of
> saying that it *binds *it.
>
>
I didn't think so, I was only asking. I don't know the difference between
binding and setting; perhaps this is sort of like local and global scope in
Lisp? I didn't know if some variables like this only had global scope.
> Barton is an experienced Maxima developer, and I don't think he'd do
> anything as foolish as have a function of his change a global setting.
>
I wasn't suggesting anything untoward (text-only doesn't have a lot of
nuance, so I understand why you might have thought that, though), just
asking a technical question, because I don't know enough Lisp to have known
whether this was even possible. I have, however, found that asking such
questions usually does no harm, and occasionally has helped avoid something
accidental - certainly very experienced Sage developers have done analogous
things in quick patches.
One of the things I like about many open source development models is that
it's okay to ask the dumb questions - which is all this was intended to be
- because the end goal isn't any one developer's reputation, but the
stability of the code. But if I have inadvertently offended anyone, I
certainly apologize.