Re: What is the "+/" operator?

Ralf Hemmecke <[email protected]> writes:

| On 05/23/2007 06:50 PM, Bill Page wrote:
| > Quoting Martin Rubey <[email protected]>:
| >
| >> ... Igor Khavkine writes:
| >>
| >>> Can someone explain this syntax? Looking at the Axiom .spad files,
| >>> I see that it has general usage +/[...some list construction...].
| >>
| >> It is old syntax for reduce and should go away.
| 
| I very much agree. The reason is that one should give an initial value
| otherwise you might be surprised.

I don't see why there should be a surprise.

Reduction through "/" is a functional on monoid operations, so one
should expect to give a unit element.

reduce on the other hand would want an initial value, or a value to
return when the list of operand is empty.



-- Gaby