Robert Bradshaw wrote: >> Another way to do it might be to have classes like Integrate (as >> opposed >> to functions), that represent an integral. > > I'm not a fan of making such a distinction based on the > capitalization of the first letter, but it would make sense to have > integral (the noun) be unevaluated, and integrate (the verb) actually > do the work. >
That presupposes a good working knowledge of the English language (at least the subset having to do with mathematics), which may not be a bad thing, but also puts up another barrier to new users. I know that probably half of my ODE class would say that the verb associated with "derivative" is "derive" (well, at least at the start of the semester; hopefully they don't have that association anymore). The nice thing about the capital letter is that there is only one command name, and a very systematic tweak that changes it from active to inert. Actually, since python style is to have camel-case class names, but lowercase functions, using camelcase for the inert versions (constructing a class object) would fit rather nicely. In other words, Integrate constructs an integral object, while integrate is a function that you call and it returns an answer. Jason --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@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-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
