Hi, On 2012-05-11, Keshav Kini <keshav.k...@gmail.com> wrote: > kcrisman <kcris...@gmail.com> writes: >> To be clear, are you complaining about defining *only* x or that x >> *is*, in fact, predefined? In any case, this is a discussion we >> probably don't need to rehash now, granted that there will never be >> peace between the Python purists and Maple wannabes. > > That x *is*, in fact, predefined. It misleads the user into expecting > that other variable names will also be predefined, whereas in fact they > are not.
IIRC, the canonical answer to the request "do not predefine x" is: "That's not gonna happen, because way too many people expect to have a variable x handy." Anyway. I don't like pre-defining x either. > FWIW I don't think it's feasible to implement Mathematica-style (or > Maple-style, I gather) "every undefined symbol is treated as a symbolic > atom rather than an error" behavior and still claim that Sage is > basically Python. That's too much of a modification. Though I like the > idea, it just doesn't seem to me to fit well with Sage, to me. Isn't there such thing already, optionally? I don't know how it can be switched on and would recommend against using it, but I recall that there is the possibility to implicitly assume (in an interactive session, by abuse/enhancement of the preparser) that all undefined variable names refer to a symbolic variable. Cheers, Simon -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
