Re: Forgetting facts from the global context

If users can alter the context of the global context, what is the point to have both the initial and global contexts?

--Barton
________________________________
From: Stavros Macrakis <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2026 11:20 AM
To: Robert Dodier <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Maxima-discuss] Forgetting facts from the global context

Caution: Non-NU Email

Documentation says:

Contexts exist in a hierarchy, with the root always being the context global, which contains information about Maxima that some functions need.

I believe that the intent is that the global context is immutable.

I don't believe it's supposed to be possible to have a context which contradicts its subcontext. (I always find the terminology confusing!)

In any case, as someone said earlier in the thread, just because you forget a fact doesn't mean that it isn't embedded in other places in the code.

On Tue, May 26, 2026 at 12:43 AM Robert Dodier <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Sat, May 23, 2026 at 9:44 AM David Scherfgen via Maxima-discuss
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

> While that's probably a bug on its own, the actual question is this: Should it be forbidden to forget facts that live in the global context?

I have mixed feelings about it, but I'm leaning towards allowing the
user to forget built-in facts. Ideally the built-in stuff is
implemented via the same mechanisms as the user-level stuff, so that
user-defined stuff is on an equal footing with built-in stuff.

There are various problems with that, which probably motivate in the
opposite direction, towards not allowing users to forget built-in
facts.

Not a big deal, I could go either way, so I'll let someone else make the call.

Robert


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