[Maxima] bug in 'is' ?

[Robert Dodier]

On 2/16/12, Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> Since strings are not (currently) in the domain of the Maxima comparison
> operators, this should either give an error or return 'unknown'.  I think I
> know what Robert's preference would be....

Well, an error is essentially a declaration that the expression in
question can never have a meaningful interpretation.

In the case of a string compared to a symbol, that could be be
given a meaningful interpretation if the symbol is assigned a
string value. (At present, is("a" < "b") triggers an error, but that's
a separate problem; it should be true.)
Therefore is("mystring" < mysymbol) should return 'unknown.

best

Robert Dodier