Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: help function (Waldek Hebisch)

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

On Wed, 5 Sep 2007, Martin Rubey wrote:

| Gabriel Dos Reis <address@hidden> writes:
| 
| > Martin Rubey <address@hidden> writes:
| > 
| > | Themos Tsikas <address@hidden> writes:
| > | 
| > | > I take the evolutionary approach: if it was A Good Idea it would have
| > | > been copied by now.
| > | 
| > | Is this the evolutionary approach, or is it just a definition of "good
| > | idea"?
| > | 
| > | I could imagine that just nobody in the surviving environments knew about
| > | the idea.
| > 
| > The idea of using `close paren' or that of separating system commands in
| > separate name space?
| 
| Neither - nor. I was referring to "evolutionary approach".  I think at times
| (not particularly often), good ideas do not survive.
| 
| Mathematica uses
| 
| ?foo   for )help foo
| 
| <<foo  for )lib foo and )read foo
| 
| !foo   for )sys foo
| 
| But since Mathematica does not allow either of ?, <<, ! as first char of an
| identifier, they do not have the same problem, so using ")" as separator of
| name spaces doesn't make any sense.  Aldor and Axiom allow all three, so ")" 
is
| a natural choice.


(1) -> ?foo x  == x + x
                                                                   Type: Void
(2) -> ?foo 3
   There are no library operations named foo 
      Use HyperDoc Browse or issue
                                )what op foo
      to learn if there is any operation containing " foo " in its 
      name.
 
   Cannot find a definition or applicable library operation named foo 
      with argument type(s) 
                               PositiveInteger
      
      Perhaps you should use "@" to indicate the required return type, 
      or "$" to specify which version of the function you need.

(2) -> <<bar x == x + x
                                                                   Type: Void
(3) -> <<bar 3
   There are no library operations named bar 
      Use HyperDoc Browse or issue
                                )what op bar
      to learn if there is any operation containing " bar " in its 
      name.
 
   Cannot find a definition or applicable library operation named bar 
      with argument type(s) 
                               PositiveInteger
      
      Perhaps you should use "@" to indicate the required return type, 
      or "$" to specify which version of the function you need.

-- Gaby