This discussion stems from:
http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/979bdce4e002cd05/e8061b2ff21a4cdf?lnk=gst&q=is_AlgebraElement#e8061b2ff21a4cdf
I decided it deserves it's own thread.
The is_functions (is_Integer, is_AlgebraElement, ect) are depreciated
and have been for 4 years now. I think it's time some of them got
deleted, but I'm not sure all of them should go.
There are 260 functions defined in Sage of the form def is_Name(x)
where Name starts with a capitol letter (I didn't count the cdef
functions so there might actually be more). Of those 110 of them
simply return isinstance(x, Name) and I think those 110 can definitely
be deleted in favor of users using isinstance(x, Name). Deleting
them, replacing all their calls with calls to isinstance, and all
their imports with imports of Name is not something I'd like to do by
hand, so I'm working on a little script.
As for the other 150, some of them do the following:
def is_Name(x)
return isinstance(x, Name_something)
I didn't check but I suspect that there is a factory called Name which
is why the _whatever is there. Another example of this issue is that
is_Cone(x) returns isinstance(x, ConvexRationalPolyhedralCone) and the
function Cone constructs ConvexRationalPolyhedraCones. I'm undecided
on whether we should remove these is_functions as well. Is the user
expected to know that the factory is just a factory? and look through
the source code to figure out what the class name is?
Finally there are some is_functions that return something slightly
more complicated then a single isinstance, for example
def is_PrimeFiniteField(x):
some imports
return isinstance(x, FiniteField_prime_modn) or \
(isinstance(x, FiniteField_generic) and x.degree() == 1)
I would probably just leave these alone but I think others who've been
at this longer might have a better idea of what the best course of
action is. It seems to me that after 4 years they should either go or
they shouldn't be depreciated.
-Jim
--
Die Dunkelheit... leitet die Musik.
Die Musik... leitet die Seele.
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