[seqfan] Re: metadata for Mathematica code

[Rick Shepherd]

In general, language version is very important, practical metadata.

A great design goal of newer language versions is backward compatibility,
but it's not always a goal and it's not always implemented perfectly -- for
a number of reasons.  To reproduce OEIS data (perhaps many years in the
future), knowing other details such as operating system version, processor
type, etc., from when the program actually ran correctly (at least once)
could be critical.  It would be good to have this info available somewhere
-- without too much clutter.

If I submit a (PARI) program and know it works in, say, version 2.3.4, I
may be using a feature that didn't exist in earlier versions (or later
versions).  Of course we could/should write code that is compatible with as
many versions as possible.

Rick