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Comment by jdeaton | Hacker News Reader

I still use the python repl in a terminal for my desktop calculator. Its a good choice since usually im already in the terminal anyways.

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I also do the same although when I need fractions, having to type all the words to import and use the fraction module is a pain

Why not just save those words, and other commonly used words to a startup file? Then, you can just do

    export PYTHONSTARTUP=/home/savant_penguin/.python/startup.py

and those things will be automatically loaded for you. (Edit: add that line to your .bashrc if you want to use it all or most of the time!)

If you don't want them always loaded, but rather just for a "calculator mode," you can do something like

    alias pycalc='PYTHONSTARTUP=/home/savant_penguin/.python/ipython startup_calc_mode.py'

If you use ipython, then you can take advantage of autocomplete and not have to type as much, too.

Thank you for this!!! I use the repl all the time and had no idea I could do this.

You're quite welcome. After 7+ years of using Python professionally, I find I'm still discovering things I didn't know. And, I'm not referring to just new stuff that gets added, either. It's cool to pick up on these little things every once in a while.

This is a really nice idea.

Together with some from fractions import Fraction as F would be even better

Thanks

I use http://www.speedcrunch.org/ now. Very handy; quick to boot and use.

Reminds me of this: https://krasjet.com/rnd.wlk/julia/

Discussed here a couple of years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23414872

I've been using clisp in the terminal since, well, forever. There's probably no advantage over Python, though.

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