I'm talking about how you said (A)B for A=3 B=-6 equals -3. By all means, tell me it's because you read it as 3 - 6, because that's my fucking point. The math is immutable. The syntax can be ambiguous.

I managed to work out how to do distribution in RPN, something you claimed couldn’t be done, so who’s the one giving zero thought?

You don't understand the claim. No shit RPN can perform the individual steps of working through (A+B)C. But that equation does not exist in RPN. If you insist even (A+B)*C is a different equation, then obviously AC*BC*+ is a different equation. You can do the math for distribution, using RPN, but the concept of distribution does not exist within RPN.

You can't have rules about parentheses in a notation that does not have parentheses.

What you did is only equivalent. In the exact same way that evaluating a parenthetical gets the same result as distribution. Because that part is math, not notation. And it doesn't matter if you do the multiplication using repeated addition, or the Russian peasant method, or floating point, or whateverthefuck. The math doesn't change... but many competing methods are equally valid.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I’m talking about how you said (A)B for A=3 B=-6 equals -3

No, that's not what I said, since that's not what you said. You didn't write (A)B where A=3 and B=-6, you wrote (3)-6, which is 3-6 (the brackets are redundant as they are 2 terms separated by an operator), which is -3. If you intended this to be interpreted as a single term then you should've written (3)(-6), which is -18. Alternatively, if you had written (3)6, that would be equal to 18, but you wrote (3)-6, which is 2 terms separated by a minus. You wrote (A)-B, not (A)B (or (A)(B)), and so I read it as (A)-B.

The syntax can be ambiguous.

No, it's not. Now that I know what you mean, you just failed to write it the way you apparently intended - you didn't follow the syntax rules for multiplying by a negative.

but the concept of distribution does not exist within in RPN

So what you're really saying, as far as I can tell, is brackets themselves don't exist in RPN.

evaluating a parenthetical gets the same result as distribution

Except when it doesn't, which is my original point.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So what you’re really saying, as far as I can tell, is brackets themselves don’t exist in RPN.

As far as you can tell. Really. Like it's an oblique implication, and not the next sentence.

If this is the rate you absorb information when it's repeatedly laid out in plain fucking English, I'm not sure we'll live long enough for you to grasp why your original point was off-topic. Good day.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 8 months ago

As far as you can tell. Really. Like it’s an oblique implication

Indeed there was an oblique implication in me saying "as far as I can tell", but you seemed to miss it (I was wording it in a polite way, rather than being downright rude like a lot of people in here seem to have no trouble with at all, but water off a duck's back...).

your original point was off-topic

The OP was about an e-calculator giving the wrong answer, so I don't see how explaining why it's doing that is off-topic (in your view).

Good day

Bye now.