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• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg58234] Documentation
• From: Andrzej Kozlowski <andrzej at akikoz.net>
• Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 02:49:52 -0400 (EDT)
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

I guess I have been rather slow but I am gradually coming round to  
the view that Mathematica's documentation leaves something to be  
desired. For example:


?CoefficientDomain

CoefficientDomain is an option for GroebnerBasis and  
PolynomialReduce. Valid
choices are Integers, Rationals, RationalFunctions, or Polynomials[var].

However:

?InexactNumbers

InexactNumbers is a setting for the CoefficientDomain option of  
GroebnerBasis
and PolynomialReduce.


InexactNumbers are mentioned in the main documentation:

  Possible settings for CoefficientDomain are InexactNumbers,  
Rationals, RationalFunctions and Polynomials[x].

but this is still quite hopeless as documentation as there is nothing  
to tell the user that the proper usage is:

GroebnerBasis[polys, vars, CoefficientDomain -> InexactNumbers[n]]

where n is precision.

No wonder that I am yet to meet a person that has heard of numerical  
Groebner basis in Mathematica never mind anyone actually using it.

Andrzej Kozlowski

Chiba, Japan

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Documentation
    • From: Daniel Lichtblau <danl@wolfram.com>