On Sat, Apr 3, 2021 at 5:26 AM Stephen J. Turnbull <turnbull.stephen...@u.tsukuba.ac.jp> wrote: > > Alexandre Brault writes: > > On 2021-04-03 12:07 a.m., John wrote: > > > >> Visually this means I can identify each particular operation and its > > >> relationship with the next term, then ignore it (visually track parts > > >> that no longer matter for understanding the equation) and look at the > > >> next parts: > > >> > > >> 1: b c f + d % e * g h - 2 / ** / > > >> 2: b ____ d % e * g h - 2 / ** / > > >> 3: b ________ e * g h - 2 / ** / > > >> 4: b ___________ g h - 2 / ** / > > >> 5: b ___________ ___ 2 / ** / > > >> 6: b [___________ _____ **] / > > >> > > >> Along the way, I've understood each part, and its relationship with > > >> the rest of the computation. > > > b/((((c+f)%d)*e)**((g-h)/2))) > > > Your very long postfix equation may or may not be more readable > > than the infix version with parentheses, but I'd argue that neither > > is more readable than a version decomposed in bite-sized operations > > over multiple statements, each using a self-documenting variable > > name. That, to me, is much more readable and fits much more within > > the philosophy of Python code > > +1 That was my immediate reaction, too: > > This is what temp variables like ____, ________, ___________, ___, and > _____ are for! Although I prefer giving them less opaque names. :-) >
Helps, but does spread the information out. It also requires finding useful names, and there aren't always meaningful names for intermediate steps. > I do love RPN for calculations, dc >> bc any day IMO. But for me, RPN > is write-only. The advantage is that I can frequently do the > calculation twice in dc in the time it takes to do it once and verify > correct formula and no typos in bc. Interesting that people find it write-only. I find it easier to modify a complicated equation in RPN than algebraic because it's easier to find precisely the part of the calculation I need and insert the extra code. I'd honestly been considering if we should have taught RPN first to give students a way to parse complicated algebraic equations by rewriting them in a less-opaque form, but quickly realized you never encounter anything more complicated than multiplying two polynomials in an educational setting.. > > Steve > > _______________________________________________ > Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org > To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ > Message archived at > https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/YIGJYPF73NRYHR5RYC6MBJELITORFK64/ > Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/ _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ Message archived at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/S5JZUDNG4WUWZT24NFZWCSEKCUZJJCMT/ Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
