Re: [Axiom-developer] Documentation bug?

[Ralf Hemmecke]

> I agree that the limitation on the length of the abbreviation
> itself was constrained by the old file names. But there are
> many cases where standard short name is quite convenient -
> especially for use by expert users in the Axiom interpreter.
> For example I often write: 'POLY INT' instead of
> 'Polynomial Integer' (and I am sure I could think of more
> extreme cases where the abbreviations are useful).

Well, I agree that some standard is not that bad. However, I mostly 
prefer to use no abbreviation. And if I do in my code I (probably) also 
provide the explicit macros I use.

Well, I don't yet have a very good argument against abbreviations, 
except that on a mailing list not all people immediately understand what 
for example, FAXF or FEXPR stand for.

> Besides being a shortcut, one reason that Axiom needs abbreviations
> is in order to construct the internal (lisp) mangled name of the
> functions exported by the domain. See for example the lisp code
> in the following example:
>
> http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/SandBoxNNI
>
> I think this name mangling is essential to the way Axiom performs
> function selection and calling.

Do you mean

; (DEFUN |NNI2;shift;$I$;2| ...) is being compiled.

I don't care much about internal names that I will never see, but I 
guess the name could also be generated as 
|NonNegativeInteger2;shift;$I$;2| without any further trouble as long as 
any compilation follows the "full-name-priciple".

I'll be quiet about )abbrev. It's not my main concern for now.

Ralf