Nils Bruin <nbr...@sfu.ca> writes: > On May 11, 12:16 am, Simon King <simon.k...@uni-jena.de> wrote: >> 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." > > Or perhaps: > > "If you don't like x predefined, then put the command 'del x' in .sage/ > init.sage". > > While reasonable defaults are nice to have, it's even more important > to make it easy for people to tweak the setting to their liking -- and > it is easy.
I think those two goals are sort of orthogonal. My objection to predefining x is not because I personally find it annoying to have it defined. Actually I find it useful too. It's the predefinition of x *as a default* that bothers me, because of what it suggests about our official system design specs. Conversely I'm sure you can imagine that I have stuff in my init.sage which I would never argue for making a default setting. So "If you don't like x predefined then get rid of it in your init.sage" does not really address my complaint, I think. Oh well. Also in regards to your wording "reasonable defaults", I would point out that defining x as a variable is not exactly a choice of a default for a setting. Choosing to make n() output 53 bits of precision unless otherwise specified is a default - it's a choice of one setting among many possible choices, all of which are more or less equally plausible to some extent. Choosing to make polynomials print in grevlex term order is also a default. Predefining x as a symbolic variable, on the other hand, is a bolt from the blue and not a default setting chosen among similar other options. I think that makes it more reasonable to talk about changing or removing it. -Keshav ---- Join us in #sagemath on irc.freenode.net ! -- 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
