[COFF] The most surprising Unix programs

[Clem Cole]

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 3:48 PM Grant Taylor via COFF <coff at minnie.tuhs.org>
wrote:

> I can see how this could be translated to RPN could cause someone to
> feel like they have a better understanding of what's being calculated.
> Conversely, infix notation leaving someone feeling separated from the
> calculation and having much less of an understanding of what's being
> calculated.
>
Maybe.  I never really saw it that way, but I can see how someone might
think that.   If you ever watched a skilled account with an adding machine
such as in the old days in an H&R Block tax office -- you will notice they
move off their eyes from the paper.  Their hands are just typing away,
entering digits and hitting the add/subtract/equal keys and they never look
at the machine until the end.  It can almost be mesmerizing.   I could be
similar that on a TI calculator, but I never could on an HP.



> This separation making it more likely that people will have problems
> estimating and having any idea if what they're doing makes any sense or
> not.
>
For some people, that probably is true.  But I'm not sure it generalizes.

Clem
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