#17447: Clarify and complete documentation of function()
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Reporter: | Owner:
schymans | Status: needs_work
Type: | Milestone: sage-6.5
enhancement | Resolution:
Priority: major | Merged in:
Component: | Reviewers: Ralf Stephan
documentation | Work issues:
Keywords: | Commit:
Authors: | 4585e74063e81a8c332a500d016e837069edf8eb
schymans | Stopgaps:
Report Upstream: N/A |
Branch: |
public/17447 |
Dependencies: |
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Comment (by nbruin):
Replying to [comment:22 kcrisman]:
> Here is another example of something confusing.
>
> http://ask.sagemath.org/question/26114/why-is-basic-arithmetic-
disallowed-on-symbolic-functions/
I think that's another issue. The problem there is that global namespace
`var` and `function` return a value ''as well as'' insert something into
the namespace. That's counter to python custom (routines that mutate state
normally return `None`. Compare `L.sort()` and `sorted(L)`. There are
exceptions: `L.pop()`).
Initially it seems pedantic to enforce such rules in a computer algebra
system as well, but the many problems it causes suggests it's not. Can we
have `declare_var('x,y')` and `declare_function('f')` for the mutating
stuff and just have `var('x')` and `function('f')` for the normal stuff?
That ship has probably sailed already.
--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/17447#comment:23>
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