Re: Calc: `*' binds more strongly than `/'

[Jay Belanger <belanger@truman.edu>]

Christian Schlauer <cs-muelleimer-rubbish.bin@arcor.de> writes:

> Jay Belanger <belanger@truman.edu> writes:
...
>> While several people have said the current behavior is convenient for
>> interactive use, I would hope (and expect) that there aren't any
>> calc-scripts depending on this behavior.  But it'd be nice to know for
>> sure.
>
> You are the maintainer of Calc -- do you have any contact to package
> authors or users of packages that make use of Calc? 

No; I'd just ask on this list and on the newsgroups.

> The tables in Org-mode use Calc. That is a non-interactive use of
> Calc, isn't it:
>
> | Value | Percentage |
> |-------+------------|
> |    17 |            |
> |    56 |            |
> |    42 |            |
> #+TBLFM: $2=$1/65*100

I suppose so, but in this case I wouldn't really say that Org-mode is
depending on the behavior of Calc but rather that the Org-mode user is
depending on it.  So this would be a problem for changing the Calc behavior.

> The `#+TBLFM:' line is a Calc-script, and some of them would break, if
> they rely on the precedence of multiplication, like this example. But
> nevertheless I think Calc's behaviour could (and should) be changed,
> because:
...
> - Org-mode could keep the existing Calc behaviour for existing tables
>   but use the `new' more standards-conforming Calc behaviour when the
>   script line `#+TBLFM:' starts with `#+TBLFMv2:'

That sounds tricky...

>> Perhaps after the release I could add a customizable variable,
>> `calc-multiplication-has-precedence' (default t), and then anyone that
>> wants to can set it to nil and try out the different behavior.
>
> Rather make the default nil so that new users can use Calc and Org
> like *any* pocket calculator or *any* spreadsheet...
>
> WDYT?

I think that anyone using a new program should at least glance at the
manual, and the Calc manual makes its behavior pretty clear.
Continuing users should be able to expect not so radical changes.
At any rate, my comment above was to enable people to check the new
behavior on their packages and make sure the new behavior is viable.

Jay