> >> What do people think about making the default ring for matrices QQ? > > > I have no objections to making QQ the defailt ring for matrices. > > I do. That's definitely *not* the proposal. The proposal is to make the > base ring the fraction field of the canonical ring in which the list of > entries live, if that fraction field is defined. QQ was just an example. > Yes, we already agree, QQ is just an example. ;)
> > A part of the confusion stems from echelon_form doing entirely > > different things based on the type of argument it gets. I would prefer > > echelon_form to always use fractions, and have some other function > > avoid the fractions. Another solution I could get behind is for > > echelon_form to have a parameter for whether to use fractions, and > > have the default be to use them. > > Echelon form over a field is just a natural special case of a more > general notion of echelon forms over rings. So from an algebraist's > point of view echelon form does *exactly* the same thing over ZZ > or QQ, relative to the ring over which we are working. > Yes - the confusing part is the dependence on the ring. My guess is that echelon_form will more often be used by people expecting to get fractions than not, and the people who know the difference will be in a better position to figure out what is happening. Cheers Bjarke --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
