As a software developer, the less ambiguous your notation is, the better it is for everyone involved. Not only will I use brackets, I’ll split my expression into multiple rows and use tabs to make it as readable as humanly possible. And maybe throw a comment or 2 if there’s still some black magic involved
As a professor said, most programming languages don’t care about readability and whitespace. But we care because humans need it to parse meaning. Thus, write code for people, not for the machine. Always assume that someone with no knowledge of the context will have to debug it, and be kind to them. Because that someone might be you in six months when you have completely forgotten how the code works.
That would probably make very long lines and black would automatically add returns to line with proper indentations. But it has a a limit for sure. If you chain many list comprehensions it’s going to be a mess.
Yeah I totally agree. You can minimize and optimize as part of your build procedure/compilation but the source code should be as readable as possible for humans.
Yep, if you’re writing code for a machine, just do it in binary to save compilation time (/s just in case). Also, you in six months will indeed be someone with no knowledge of the context. And every piece of code you think you write for one-time use is guaranteed to be reused every day for the next 5 years
For real though, I have written some truly monstrous operations in Excel.
What do you mean you want to use Excel to manage everyone’s calendars? And now you want to export that horribly built calendar management spreadsheet to Google Calendar? What do you mean you want the Google Calendar entries automatically formatted based on who is working on a particular day? I mean yes it’s possible but-…
I genuinely hate being human for this stuff. So many things have such crazy computational shortcuts, it’s sometimes difficult to remember which part represents reality. Outside of the realm of math, where “imaginary” numbers are still a touch of enigma to me, so many algorithms are based on general assumptions about reality or the specific task, that the programmatic approach NEVER encapsulates the full scope of the problem.
As in, sometimes if you know EXACTLY how a tool works, you might still have no idea about the significance of that tool. Even in a universe where no one is lazy, and everyone wants to know “why?”, the answers are NOT forthcoming.
Ok but that’s unrelated to putting some numbers and operations in a calculator. No one is going to proofread that. If anything, you simply calculate it again.
I had someone submit a pull request recently that, in addition to their actual changes, also removed every single parenthesis that wasn’t strictly necessary in a file full of 3D math functions. I know it was probably the fault of an autoformatter they used, but I was still the most offended I’ve ever been at a pull request.
Somehow that clip is better than the fairly odd movie. I don’t think I could recommend it… But I think of the clip posted all the time. It’s so weird 😂. Some how they figured out creepy, funny, and somehow wholesome at once.
The underlying truth of this joke is: Programming syntax is less confusing than mathematical syntax. There are genuinely ambiguous layouts of syntax in math (to a human reader that hasn’t internalized PEMDAS, anyways) whereas you get a compilation error if ANYTHING is ambiguous in programming. (yes, I am WELL aware of the frustrations of runtime errors)
You have the right idea, and you are right in some regards. Generally the order of magnitude is an order of 10. That is, 1350 could be represented as 1.350×10³, so the order of magnitude is the third order of 10, which is 10³ (i.e. some value x×1000).
Order is often used to describe exponents when talking about functions and other mathematical properties. In a lot of cases, it’s also equivalent to a degree. For example, a function y = x² - 9 is a second-order/degree polynomial.
Alternatively, one could find a second-order rate of a reaction, which means the rate of reaction is proportional to the square of a solution’s concentration.
But when I learned BEDMAS, my teacher directed us to do implied multiplication before other multiplication/division. Which, as far as I’m aware, is mathematically correct according to the proper order of operations (instead of whatever acronym summary you learned).
Before I get "umm. Acktually"d … I know that’s not the full picture of the order of operations as it should be in mathematics. But for the limited scope I learned of algebra from highschool, AFAIK, this is correct to the point that I have understanding of. I’m not a mathematician, and I work with computers all day long and they do the math for me when I need to do any of it. So higher understanding in my case is not helpful.
AFAIK, this is correct to the point that I have understanding of. I’m not a mathematician
I’m a Maths teacher/tutor. The actual rules are Terms and The Distributive Law. There is no such thing as “implicit multiplication” (which is usually people lumping the 2 separate rules together as one and ending up with wrong answers).
Every single Maths textbook I’ve seen teaches it correctly. The issue is people not remembering what they were taught (and then programming a calculator without checking it first). Calculators
Also: sometimes, a mathematician just has to invent some concept or syntax to convey something unconventional. The specific use of subscript/superscript, whatever ‘phi’ is being used for, etc. on whatever paper you’re reading doesn’t have to correlate to how other work uses the same concepts. It’s bad form, but sometimes its needed, and if useful enough is added to the general canon of what we call “math”. Meanwhile, you can encapsulate and obfuscate things in software, sure, but you can always get down to the bedrock of what the language supports; there’s no inventing anything new.
Yea, that’s it. Math syntax was created for humans, and programming syntax had to always remain deterministic for computers. It’s not an insult to either, just interesting how ambiguities show up often when humans are involved. I say ‘often’ for the general case: Math should be just as deterministic as programming, but it’s not in some situations.
Isn’t the “-” order of operations the same as a multiply ? I think I learned powers take priority over the “-” so your calculator would be right.
But either way if it can cause confusion you should use parentheses.
Every calculator I’ve used has separate negative and subtraction keys for this purpose. There is no order of operations to follow, it’s just a squaring a number
I learned negative as being a separate operation where we need to apply the order of operations. I think it was something like : -2 is a diminutive for -1x2 so it uses the order of operations of a multiplication.
My calculator is the official one used in schools in France (ti-83 premium ce) and it says -2^2 = -4 with the negative key. I don’t think it would make a mistake in such a simple concept.
But whatever these concepts can change depending on the field, country, level of education. What I mean is : it’s unclear, so use parentheses. So (-2)^2 or -(2^2) are the correct ways to write it.
I think it was something like : -2 is a diminutive for -1x2
Correct. Things that are usually left out of Maths expressions are plus signs, ones as multipliers/indices, and un-needed brackets. e.g. I could more fully write this as -1(4)², but that just simplifies to -4²
I would never write -n². Either ‐(n²) or (-n)². Order of operations shouldn’t be some sort of gotcha to trick people into misinterpreting you, it’s the intuitive reading of a well constructed mathematical expression.
Ah, I wasn’t thinking of calculators that let you type in a full expression. When I was in school, only fancy graphing calculators had that feature. A typical scientific calculator didn’t have juxtaposition, so you’d have to enter 6÷2(1+2) as 6÷2×(1+2), and you’d get 9 as the answer because ÷ and × have equal precedence and just go left to right.
you’d get 9 as the answer because ÷ and × have equal precedence and just go left to right
Well, more precisely you broke up the single term 2(1+2) into 2 terms - 2 and (1+2) - when you inserted the multiplication symbol, which sends the (1+2) from being in the denominator to being in the numerator. Terms are separated by operators and joined by grouping symbols.
I just used the calc on window… it cannot respect order of operation
Yeah, I’ve tried several times to get Microsoft to fix their calculators. I’ve given up trying now - eventually you have to stop banging your head against the wall.
It is also frustrating when different calculators have different orders of operations and dont tell you.
Yeah, but to be fair most of them do tell you the order of operations they use, they just bury it in a million lines of text about it. If they could all just check with some Maths teachers/textbooks first then it wouldn’t be necessary. Instead we’re left trying to work out which ones are right and which ones aren’t. Any calculator that gives you an option to switch on/off “implicit multiplication”, then just run as fast as you can the other way! :-)
Add comment