5 Jan
2014
5 Jan
'14
8:28 p.m.
I have often heard this, but I did not find it myself.
Perhaps it
depends on the way the individual's mind works. It took me some time
and effort to master algebra and algebraic notation in school. Once I
had done so, when later on others came along and said "oh no, you
don't want to do it like that!" then I did not take it well.
I had almost the reverse experience. It took me a vouple of hours at most
to become familiar with RPN on my HP41 all those years ago, and my first
thought when U'd done so was 'why is normal algebraic notation so
clumsy?;
Algebraic notation works well for me. It's how I write stuff down, and
therefore, it's how I want a calculating tool to work as well. Getting
It's certainly not how I think. I do not think of the entire expresion
and then evaluate it. I will eb thining 'I need to calcuate the votlage
here, then this oen is 3/2 times as much, Sp the curent throug that
rsistor is ... and so on. Something thati s much easier to do on an RPN
machine than an infix one.
Actually, I find it very unnatural to read an algebraic expression left
to right. Isubconciously look at the highest priority term first -- look
at hte deepest level of parentheses, etc. Whcih means I actually find it
easier to enter such an expression in RPN than on an infix machine.
-tony