On 4/4/25 1:37 AM, Didier Kryn wrote:
> Le 03/04/2025 à 17:12, Marc Shapiro via Dng a écrit :
>>>     Yet, both languages have this pretty ancient feature I dislike
>>> which is "everyting is a function": eg arithmetic operators are
>>> functions and you must express "3+4" as "(+ 3 4)" in Scheme and I
>>> guess it's the same in Guile. This is a return to the past almost
>>> back to the primitive pocket calculators for which you would type "3
>>> 4 +" . BTW Postscript works like this but it was not primarily
>>> intended for humans. I understand it makes writing the interpreters
>>> more trivial, but, well! we're in the 21st century and the computer
>>> languages should adapt to humans, not the opposite. Interpreters and
>>> compilers have plenty of cpu power and ram available to do that.
>>
>> I liked the RPN on my old HP 25!  People who only understood
>> algebraic notation never asked to borrow my calculator a second time.
>
>     I boutgh an HP pocket calculator in Chicago in 1990. Unfortunately
> there was no more these good old reverse polish notation models and I
> got one wich decoded formulas in the mathematical style with
> parentheses. I think the RPN was more convenient for a pocket
> calculator. But note things are very different when you need to
> remember everyting you type than when you can read and edit the whole
> formula in the text editor.
>
Being the dinosaur that I am, I got mine in early 1975.

Marc