From: terry at jon.es (Terry Jones)
Subject: [COFF] The most surprising Unix programs
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2020 21:10:41 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CACqnu4V9V925j2_n8CPRWXkujRgYShzcmsbL6gLCA=CJHqUksw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <a33b102b-b26a-1f11-f516-80d9d0fa05ef@tnetconsulting.net>
I also love RPN, dc, & the HP calculators. I wrote an RPN calculator in
Python recently (I call it via a shell alias called pc). It imports much of
the math, operator, and builtins modules, so you can use it just like dc,
but with much more stuff available:
$ pc 200 pi \* log10 sqrt
1.6727760963016285
You can push arbitrary Python objects and functions onto the stack. Install
with pip install rpnpy Source at https://github.com/terrycojones/rpnpy
Terry
On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 8:48 PM Grant Taylor via COFF <coff at minnie.tuhs.org>
wrote:
> On 3/20/20 1:43 PM, Grant Taylor via COFF wrote:
> > What I think I'm hearing you say is that with RPN you were shouldering
> > part of the computational load based on how you were entering things so
> > that they aligned as necessary with the stack. Conversely, you were
> > simply "plug and chug" (as I've heard elsewhere). Meaning you entered
> > the equation / formula and were largely hands off from the calculation.
>
> I can see how this could be translated to RPN could cause someone to
> feel like they have a better understanding of what's being calculated.
> Conversely, infix notation leaving someone feeling separated from the
> calculation and having much less of an understanding of what's being
> calculated.
>
> This separation making it more likely that people will have problems
> estimating and having any idea if what they're doing makes any sense or
> not.
>
>
>
> --
> Grant. . . .
> unix || die
>
> _______________________________________________
> COFF mailing list
> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff
>
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-03-20 20:10 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <202003132331.02DNVaxN061501@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
[not found] ` <7ec47fd97b1a3d383ffed428f21f5287@firemail.cc>
[not found] ` <CALMnNGjuQybT8_g_g498dOuV9OV67JEOn7Mz34vG1TeO9WrkYw@mail.gmail.com>
[not found] ` <cdef128a21d3ed60c79dc5253d761652@firemail.cc>
[not found] ` <20200317145723.GF26660@mcvoy.com>
2020-03-17 15:41 ` [COFF] [TUHS] " clemc
2020-03-17 22:48 ` dave
[not found] ` <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.2003180908300.10777@aneurin.horsfall.org>
[not found] ` <c44be69f-846d-55f2-2709-8765f7f5fcc4@gmail.com>
2020-03-19 21:31 ` dave
2020-03-19 21:30 ` cym224
2020-03-19 21:48 ` stewart
2020-03-21 2:49 ` dave
2020-03-21 2:55 ` lm
2020-03-21 4:01 ` [COFF] HP calculator emulators (was: The most surprising Unix programs) grog
2020-03-21 7:21 ` [COFF] The most surprising Unix programs tih
2020-03-21 21:10 ` mparson
[not found] ` <6D9CA6C2-BDF2-4BCA-9503-0F8415C594C9@guertin.net>
2020-03-20 15:40 ` [COFF] [TUHS] " gtaylor
[not found] ` <202003201640.02KGerlG470796@darkstar.fourwinds.com>
[not found] ` <0b0d0ba3-7eae-a844-cc9a-ae542edb302b@tnetconsulting.net>
2020-03-20 19:11 ` clemc
2020-03-20 19:31 ` [COFF] " tih
2020-03-20 19:43 ` gtaylor
2020-03-20 19:47 ` gtaylor
2020-03-20 20:10 ` terry [this message]
2020-03-20 20:37 ` clemc
2020-03-20 20:30 ` tih
2020-03-20 20:31 ` clemc
2020-03-20 22:51 ` dave
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