On the Function problem
- To: mathgroup at yoda.ncsa.uiuc.edu
- Subject: On the Function problem
- From: "Roger B. Kirchner" <kirchner at cs.umn.edu>
- Date: Wed, 10 Oct 90 11:50:19 CDT
Several people have pointed out that the problem with Function is a
bug in Derivative[1] which doesn't know how to handle Subtract in
the version of Function which uses variables. The bug seems to be in
all current versions of Mathematica.
A couple of people have observed that the problem does not exist with
the version of Function which uses slots. This is just as good for my
purposes because I want to deemphasize variable names in function definitions.
In[1]:= f = Function[x, x^2 - x]
2
Out[1]= Function[x, x - x]
In[2]:= f'[x]
2
Out[2]= (Function[x, x - x])'[x]
In[3]:= g = Function[#^2 - #]
2
Out[3]= #1 - #1 &
In[4]:= g'[x]
Out[4]= -1 + 2 x
Roger Kirchner
rkirchne at mathcs.carleton.edu