Re: [Axiom-developer] Am I posing this solve problem wrong?

[Martin Rubey]

"Bill Page" <address@hidden> writes:

> I have been thinking specifically about the algorithms that the Axiom
> interpreter uses to do type inference and function selection. Some part of
> the behaviour is "hard coded" into the interpreter and not easy to change,
> but a large part of it depends on interaction with the design of the Axiom
> library, i.e. the coercions and other operations that are exported by exposed
> domains. It seems to me that in many cases not enough attention has been paid
> to "tuning" the Axiom library so that the Axiom interpreter produces fewer
> surprises for the new user.

Some time ago I posted a question in exactly this direction (something like
"why doesn't HOAGG R export coerce: % -> List R and coerce: List R -> %).

I can only guess that one answer (which I didn't get, but I give myself) is
optimization: coercion done by the library *might* be relatively slow.

However, I'm quite sure it would make a lot of sense to replace the contents of
i-coerce by appropriate definitions in the algebra.

Exploration here is very very welcome -- and in FriCAS also relatively
painless, one only has to keep in mind that changes at this level usually make
complete recompilation of the algebra necessary.

Of course, the insights will be valuable for all three projects.

Martin