On Aug 30, 7:46 pm, Robert Dodier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From the direction this discussion has taken I'm guessing that > nobody here is aware that selective evaluation is trivial in Lisp, > and Maxima. In both cases a single quote marks stuff that > isn't evaluated. Maxima further marks a distinction between > so-called noun and verb operators; nouns are formal expressions > and verbs are callable functions. E.g. integrate(...) is a function > call > and 'integrate(...) is a formal expression. I've omitted some details.
I was dimly aware of this, and I think it's awesome. No question that this sits squarely in Lisp's problem domain, and not so much in Python's. Some would argue that everything sits squarely in Lisp's problem domain, right? But Sage is Python, so what should we do? > This kind of stuff yanks my chain in a bad way, unfortunately. > I gather it is more interesting to reinvent the wheel than learn > how to use existing, unfamiliar wheel technology. What makes > it worse is that there is talk of copying Maple and Mathematica > notation, which both have all sorts of warts. Blechh. I know I'm usually a Mathematica fanboy on this list, but I agree it has plenty of warts. Nonetheless, it's what I know well, and I'll continue pointing out where I think it is better than proposed alternatives. I also accept that it's sometimes worse than things I don't know about. > Oh gods, help me! I seem to be turning into RJF. Probably I > should just butt out of this. It will make no difference to you > and I will be happier in my ignorance. Please don't give up on us, if you can bear it. You are clearly an expert in an area where most others on this list are deficient. You've got some kick ass wheels. It's just, well, we've got the beginnings of this whole car, and how do we fit those wheels on there? Even if Sage decides to come up with its own wheels, there's no doubt that Lisp/Maxima's wheels are worth learning from. JM --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
