🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <a_rubin.726451074@dn66> a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) writes:
>In <15373.2b4c73d5@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu> vandesande@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu writes:
>
>
>>Pi Sqrt[Pi]/(2 2 Sqrt[2])
>
>>The explanation for the "big bad bug" from Wolfram is that 
>>the Simplification rules for Power conflict.  The expression
>>is "simplified" back and forth between two different forms.
>>Will fix in another release, they say.  There is no really 
>>satisfactory fix.
>
>There is a satisfactory fix.  Wolfram just doesn't think so.
>The fix would be to set which automatic simplification is in effect with a
>global variable.

The use of such global variables leads to largely unusable systems
with horrifying semantics (since there is a lot of hidden state at any
given time, which affects your computation in unpredictable ways). In
addition, there is a lot of temptation to use this global switches to
paper over serious bugs, just as you are suggesting here. If you are
unpersuaded, this strategy is one of the major weaknesses in MACSYMA,
so you know where to go and what to do...