2009/5/22 John H Palmieri <jhpalmier...@gmail.com>: > > > > On May 22, 4:16 am, Martin Albrecht <m...@informatik.uni-bremen.de> > wrote: >> 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. > > I think it's here: > > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/5da37697486b4c58/f12287f00af7e8a1?hl=en&tvc=2&q=degree+laurent#f12287f00af7e8a1 >
Thanks John -- I thought it all sounded familiar! I am pleased to say that my 2008 and 2009 opinions are consistent, anyway. John > John > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
