William Stein wrote: > Would you consider this weird if you read it in a paper, or > would you know how to interpret it? > > "Let $f = x^3 + x + 1$ and consider $f(10)$."
I'm not so sure I know what to do with that. I'm pretty sure I want (x^3 + x + 1)(10) to be (x^3)(10) + x(10) + 1(10). (If the last term were y instead of 1, I'd probably want y(10).) About x(10), I might want that to be x, 10, 10*x, or let it remain x(10). About (x^3)(10), I might want that to be x(x(x(10))) or (x(10))^3. I might want 1(10) to be 1. I probably want x(10) to yield the same as 1(10) if I substitute 1 for x. These considerations lead to different interpretations, most of which differ from the way Sage implements callable expressions, if I'm not mistaken. I don't see a need for Sage to preempt useful and interesting interpretations. Under the circumstances, the right thing to do is to postpone function evaluation until additional context is supplied. FWIW Robert Dodier --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@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-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
