Re: [Axiom-developer] Examples on functions

[Tim Daly]

Bertfried Fauser wrote:
> Dear Tim,
>
>   
> > On another topic, Axiom algebra is integrating the regression test
> > files with the algebra sources. If you generate new code I beg you
> > to write as many tests as you can, especially including a test for
> > each function.
> >     
>
> I try to comply with this rule (ralf also asked for documentation) for
> the symmetric
> functions and hope they make their way into AXIOM(TM) too.
>
> However a fully documeted code is out of my working power, there is just far too
> much to say about symmetric functions.
>
> You saw possibly the mail of Martin on Clifford algebras. I have tried
> to test some
> Clifford issues in FriCAS (no AXIOM(TM) on my computer currently) but
> that should
> be identical. FriCAS is assuming that the quadratic form is diagonal,
> that is very bad.
> Perhaps I will find time to improve that. I tried to put up a sandbox
> on newsynthesis,
> but I possibyl forgot my user paseword there, since the system didn't
> let me create
> a new sandbox
>
> Ciao
> BF.
>
>   
Given working tests we have some hope of figuring out what a function
is supposed to do. Without a working test we can only guess whether the
answer is right or not. You certainly have to construct these simple
test cases in order to debug your code. Save the tests you do.

As for documentation, it helps to include a small paragraph that
contains enough so that we can find the rest in the literature.
Even something as simple as a link to Eric's mathworld or wikipedia
or a book reference would be a start. When I worked on the special
function E1 at least there was a reference to Luke's book. Nobody
can really expect you to write a tutorial or a book chapter but
references help a lot.

I'm trying to avoid just a straight "code dump" because then we
have to guess. The main reason I started added example output to
the ")display operation" command is that the new user would have
at least one working example of every function. Sometimes it is
very hard to construct the Axiom type even if you know what the
input should look like, which I'm sure you have experienced.

Tim