@Carl Love 

Actually the procedure that needs to be "neutralized" is `evalf/constant/gamma`. This is in Maple 17.01:

> `evalf/constant/gamma`:=:-gamma: 
> local gamma:=`γ`:
Warning, A new binding for the name `gamma` has been created. The global
instance of this name is still accessible using the :- prefix, :-`gamma`.  See
?protect for details.
> evalf(gamma); 
                                    γ
> evalf(:-gamma);
                                    :-gamma
> evalf('gamma');
                                    :-gamma

@Preben Alsholm 

See also Jacques' comment.

@Preben Alsholm 

See also Jacques' comment.

@acer 

Both subs and eval fail in Maple 17.01 and work in Maple 16.02 and earlier versions back to Maple 9.03. It smells to me as somehow related to the programmer indexing bug (also posed by casperyc): a change in the data structure that subs and eval cannot cope.

@acer 

Both subs and eval fail in Maple 17.01 and work in Maple 16.02 and earlier versions back to Maple 9.03. It smells to me as somehow related to the programmer indexing bug (also posed by casperyc): a change in the data structure that subs and eval cannot cope.

A help link in ?RootOf to ?DEtools,remove_RootOf would help, I think...

A help link in ?RootOf to ?DEtools,remove_RootOf would help, I think...

See the editor help page > Including HTML in your message.

@Mac Dude 

Actually, when I have written above about opensourcing, I was thinking on transcription of PDG data. Whenever I needed an experimental value I have looked at their booklets. It would be great if they could be persuaded to make their source files available.

About relying on Maple when designing the next billion-$ particle collider, these are interesting threads/subthreads:

When an upgrade isn't

Broken help links / Maple 12 Classic

Quality Assurance

(note that the logic of these threads was upset in the conversion from primes 1 to primes 2).

Well, this Maplesoft blog tells about JPL recently begining a widespread adoption of Maplesoft’s products. I hope that there will be no other crashed space probe because of a faulty unit conversion :)

May be that there is a command in the library factoring out repetitions as you have posed it, but it is undocumented (note that most of the procedures in the library are undocumented). Or may be that there is none. In any case, it is easy to write a procedure for this purpose.

May be that there is a command in the library factoring out repetitions as you have posed it, but it is undocumented (note that most of the procedures in the library are undocumented). Or may be that there is none. In any case, it is easy to write a procedure for this purpose.

@erik10 

Certainly, I have shown the most basics steps of the scheme. If you will need these kinds of plots frequently, it might become convenient to put these lines into a procedure, and save it into your own library, so that you need to write it only once. And diverse improvements could be added as a plot view region with a nice default, or chosen as an option, and options for lines' style and color, etc.

@erik10 

Certainly, I have shown the most basics steps of the scheme. If you will need these kinds of plots frequently, it might become convenient to put these lines into a procedure, and save it into your own library, so that you need to write it only once. And diverse improvements could be added as a plot view region with a nice default, or chosen as an option, and options for lines' style and color, etc.

@J F Ogilvie 

Indeed it seems reasonable and proper, also to my mind. But the facts are otherwise, like you or not. In particular, if so many bugs, some serious, remain unfixed for years, that this data is not kept updated looks minor in comparison. Much more than 5x10^3 changes and enhancements per year would be needed to maintain a system of this size in good shape...

As this discussion has shown that most data is available from the web in ascii format, things might be easier, and it becomes relevant asking whether the current design with hardcoded data is wise. Perhaps an implementation that retrieves the data from these tables, as acer has outlined, and probably checking for updates, might be more sustainable. One advantage would be that all the versions of Maple could get also the latest data. On the other hand, a potential problem would be the stability of these data sources (in location and format).  

@acer 

Yes I have downloaded these data sets published by AIP through the university subscription. The articles are in pdf and there are some complementary html tables for 2005. But a quick browse shows that there is no so thorough information inside. For instance the table of 2001 shows only two isotopes for hydrogen: H[1] and H[2], instead of six as in the referred output.