Hacker News Reader

I started studying Lisp recently and it blew my mind it can do rational fractions, also virtually infinite length integers, OOTB. I used and programmed computers since 286s and have never seen this before. Now I don't even understand why do people still use calculators (including calculator apps) when we have Lisp which is easier and more powerful.

View on HN

There's a nice calculator app bundled with Windows 10, and I even have Mathematica installed, and of course Desmos is useable everywhere, but... when I need to compute anything that's more than simple elementary arithmetic, I just open a Python REPL. It's simple to type, it's readable, and way easier to use than a calculator for persistence (ever tried to use variables on a scientific calculator? It works, but it sucks)

> when I need to compute anything that's more than simple elementary arithmetic, I just open a Python REPL. It's simple to type, it's readable

Indeed. It also is fairly hard (to me at least) to enter a long (longer than 2 operands) sequence into a classic calculator without making a typo. Whenever I need even to just add 4 numbers I don't use a calculator to enter 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 nor a spreadsheet to enter the data in separate cells, select them and see the sum (I used this way until recently) - I open IdeOne.com, choose Common Lisp and enter (+ 1 2 3 4). Needless to day I don't only use it for formulae this simple, it is of great help in complex cases.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com