From: Christian Schlauer <cs-muelleimer-rubbish.bin@arcor.de>
To: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Calc: `*' binds more strongly than `/'
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 23:29:55 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <878xcpz7zg.fsf@totally-fudged-out-message-id> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 867isb2mnv.fsf@blue.stonehenge.com
merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) writes:
>>>>>> "Christian" == Christian Schlauer
>>>>>> <cs-muelleimer-rubbish.bin@arcor.de> writes:
>
> Christian> I believe (but I do not know) that Calc's behaviour is
> Christian> (too) far from what `ordinary' people (like me ;-) would
> Christian> expect: I ran into this feature in my first table and
> Christian> wondered what was going on. I thought that Org-mode
> Christian> calculates `wrong'.
>
> You mean from what *programmers* think. Keep in mind that Calc was
> designed by a mathematician, and it's much more natural in math to
> have * have higher precedence than /. There's no promise that the
> order of operations is like programmer-think. I got used to it quite
> quickly when I was playing with Calc during its initial development.
Hm. I'm an engineer, not a programmer ;-) I can only say that Calc
seems to be a fantastic tool, especially when one is on a computer
where the `heaviest' math tool installed is some spreadsheet.
But I wouldn't recommend it to an engineer as it doesn't work in the
way I (and spreadsheet-users) am used to, that is left-to-right
evaluation in absence of parentheses.
I didn't think that my expectation of the order of operations is like
programmers think. I learned in school that when I write on paper
2 * 3
-----
4 * 5
I have to enter it in my pocket calculator (Casio) as 2*3/(4*5), and
it seems that Jay found the same behaviour with other brands. So it
starts with the school kids, not with programmers.
> I suggest it not be changed. It will break old code (Calc has been
> around for almost two decades)
That's the risk. I'm surprised: am I the first one to complain about
this feature? In 20 years? But then, Calc hasn't been bundled with
Emacs until now.
> it's a minor thing
I don't agree. When I write a formula for a table in Org-mode, I
always have to check it carefully as Calc does not work like Gnumeric,
Openoffice's spreadsheet, MATLAB, Excel, ... I simply have a bad
feeling when typing the formula due to this feature and the fact that
it makes using Calc more error-prone for me (and for all those
familiar with the spreadsheet programs mentioned before).
> and people have eventually stumbled on it, and it's well (over?)
> documented.
It is well-documented, but it is an unnecessary trap, IMO.
Regards,
Christian Schlauer
prev parent reply other threads:[~2007-04-18 21:29 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 56+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2007-04-14 11:57 Calc: `*' binds more strongly than `/' Christian Schlauer
2007-04-14 15:09 ` Jay Belanger
2007-04-15 19:21 ` Chong Yidong
2007-04-15 20:05 ` Stefan Monnier
2007-04-17 12:47 ` Randal L. Schwartz
2007-04-17 18:03 ` Stefan Monnier
2007-04-18 8:44 ` Kim F. Storm
2007-04-18 19:27 ` Stefan Monnier
2007-04-18 20:02 ` Davis Herring
2007-04-18 20:16 ` David Kastrup
2007-04-18 21:43 ` Davis Herring
2007-04-19 16:10 ` Stefan Monnier
2007-04-20 11:13 ` Randal L. Schwartz
2007-04-20 13:40 ` Stefan Monnier
2007-04-20 14:07 ` Jay Belanger
2007-04-22 1:31 ` Miles Bader
2007-04-22 10:19 ` Christian Schlauer
2007-04-22 10:23 ` Christian Schlauer
2007-04-22 19:47 ` Jay Belanger
2007-04-23 10:46 ` Jason Rumney
2007-04-23 13:03 ` Kim F. Storm
2007-04-23 15:54 ` Jay Belanger
2007-04-25 19:56 ` Christian Schlauer
2007-04-25 20:54 ` Jay Belanger
2007-04-26 3:35 ` Stefan Monnier
2007-04-26 4:06 ` Jay Belanger
2007-04-26 14:11 ` Stefan Monnier
2007-04-26 21:07 ` Christian Schlauer
2007-04-26 15:07 ` Davis Herring
2007-04-26 16:01 ` Stefan Monnier
2007-04-26 18:32 ` Luc Teirlinck
2007-04-26 21:29 ` Christian Schlauer
2007-04-26 23:17 ` Luc Teirlinck
2007-04-26 21:07 ` Christian Schlauer
2007-04-27 1:27 ` Jay Belanger
2007-04-26 17:47 ` Davis Herring
2007-06-20 15:23 ` Jay Belanger
2007-06-20 16:02 ` Kim F. Storm
2007-06-20 17:13 ` Jay Belanger
2007-06-20 17:29 ` Luc Teirlinck
2007-06-20 17:54 ` Jay Belanger
2007-06-20 19:14 ` Kim F. Storm
2007-06-20 19:28 ` Luc Teirlinck
2007-06-20 20:18 ` Jay Belanger
2007-04-17 18:54 ` Jay Belanger
2007-04-18 21:55 ` Christian Schlauer
2007-04-19 2:58 ` Daniel Brockman
2007-04-22 10:27 ` Christian Schlauer
2007-04-26 16:00 ` Daniel Brockman
2007-04-19 15:16 ` Drew Adams
2007-04-19 17:05 ` David Kastrup
2007-04-19 17:18 ` Drew Adams
2007-04-19 17:33 ` David Kastrup
2007-04-16 15:38 ` Richard Stallman
2007-04-17 12:47 ` Randal L. Schwartz
2007-04-18 21:29 ` Christian Schlauer [this message]
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=878xcpz7zg.fsf@totally-fudged-out-message-id \
--to=cs-muelleimer-rubbish.bin@arcor.de \
--cc=cs-usenet@arcor.de \
--cc=emacs-devel@gnu.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this external index
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/org-mode.git
This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.