On Friday 22 May 2009, John Cremona wrote: > There are 3 conventions for the degree of the 0 polynomial, none of which > is 0: > > (1) None (a bit lazy and hard to work with in most non-python languages) > (2) -1 (rather arbitrary, I think, it just has the useful property > of being strictly less than any other degree) > (3) -Infinity (less arbitrary, also less then any other degree, makes > formulas like deg(fg)=deg(f)+deg(g) work in all cases, and fits in > best with more highbrow concepts such as valuations).
IIRC we had this discussion a while back and settled for -1 for performance reasons. I can't find that old discussion now though. Martin -- name: Martin Albrecht _pgp: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x8EF0DC99 _otr: 47F43D1A 5D68C36F 468BAEBA 640E8856 D7951CCF _www: http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~malb _jab: martinralbre...@jabber.ccc.de --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
