On Jan 16, 2008 9:26 AM, Robert Bradshaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > There is no way in python to detect how many arguments a function > result will be assigned to, and I'm not a fan of magma's way of doing > it. WIth variable length tuples one has to check the length of a > tuple before unpacking it.
I'll just come out and say it -- It's a _terrible_ design in Magma. I also found it bad when I used it. I once overheard somebody at IHP in Paris talking with John Cannon about Magma and learning of variable numbers of return arguments (as in Magma), and just being incredulous that they could have actually implemented something like that. And personally it makes the computer scientist in me cringe. Python's solution to the multiple-return-values problem, with automatic tuple unpacking, is much more elegant. > There is a function E1.isomorphism_to(E2) that actually computes the > isomorphism. I think is_isomorphism should just return True or False > (is_* has that convention). Then one can do such things as > > if E.is_isomporhic(F): > ... > > Perhaps an optional argument "compute" which computes and then caches > or returns the actual isomorphism. +1 That's explicit and clear. William --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
