[Coco] Cocopedia updated

[Christopher Smith]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Aaron Wolfe" <aawolfe at gmail.com>
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Monday, July 29, 2013 5:27:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Cocopedia updated
> 
> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 6:24 PM, Christopher Smith
> <csmith at wolfram.com> wrote:
> > Still used, in fact, with newer HP calculators and still popular
> > enough among engineering types.  I have a reasonably (within the
> > last five years) new HP40G+ which has an RPN mode, which I quite
> > like.  Several computer languages -- especially stack-based
> > languages -- use RPN style mathematical precedence.  LISP and
> > derivatives (Scheme, for example), Forth, that kind of thing...
> >
> 
> I'll give up my RPN based HP48 when they pry it from my cold, dead
> hands :)
> 
> Once you become comfortable on an rpn calculator, you will cringe
> every time you are forced to use an algebraic one.

Agreed.  It's simple and predictable, and especially in certain types of functional programming, and probably calculus it makes a great deal of sense to do things this way.  For example, you can try different operations on a particular number by duplicating the top of the stack, performing some more calculations on it, and swapping elements to move the current value back in the stack by one, repeating until you've tried the entire set of options.  If you want to find a minimum or maximum or a sum of that work, it's obviously quite simple at that point.  In an algebraic system, you'd need to do quite a bit more work to manage something like that.

Taking an RPN calculator to a math class really does feel like using a jackhammer to break drywall sometimes. Takes a bit of extra effort to start out, but it makes quick work of problems that others spend an eternity trying to solve.  :)

Of course, now that I've talked it up this much, I really should go and try BASIC-09.

Chris

-- 
Christopher Smith
Systems Engineer, Wolfram Research