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Comment by exe34 | Hacker News Reader

yes a lot of people love them, but nobody's actually coming up with anything I can't do in python...

You can do everything in Python. But perhaps it is not the best tool for every job.

This is similar to programming language discussions: any programming language can be discredited by saying "but I can do all that in assembly/C/whatever". Yes, you can, but perhaps there are better ways to do it.

usually with programming languages, we mention certain things - like how python is easier to read, it's almost like English. it comes with dozens of well designed built-in libraries to do a lot of useful things, and thousands of external libraries to do the rest - even gluing together c/Fortran code for the speedup. it's well supported on many platforms so you can design on one comfortable os environment and deploy in a scalable one.

for the engineering calculators, it seems the advantage is that some people learnt to use them in school and really love using them? that's great, I'm tempted to look into them myself, because it does sound cool to have a small device that does that sort of thing while I'm reading a book. but the truth is that for me, both at work and at home, my laptop is never more than 5 seconds away from showing me a repl, so maybe I'm not the target audience.

Let's see your Python answers to the following examples:

1. What happens if I rotate binary pattern 1001 right by 3 positions on a 18-bit PDP-9?

  RPL code: 18 STWS 2#1001 3 RRC

  Result: #8001 in base 16, #1000 0000 0000 0001 in base 2.

What about if I do this on 6 36-bit words?

  RPL code: 6 36 * STWS 2#1001 3 RRC

  Result: #20 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001

2. What is the symbolic expression of the determinant of some 2x2 matrix?

  Program: [[1 y]['2+x' b]] DET

  Answer: 'b-(x+2)·y' (shows graphically on calculator screen)

3. What is the output voltage of a voltage divider with input voltage 100V, R1=4kΩ, R2=10Ω

  Program: R1=4_kΩ R2=10_Ω V=100_V 'ROOT(ⒺVolt Divider;[V1];[1_V])' EVAL

  Result: [ V1=99.75 V ]

  Note that ⒺVolt Divider is a built-in equation, but you can of course put your own.

4. Verify if Ramanujan constant exp(sqrt(163)*pi) is an integer.

  Program: « 'exp(√ 163·Ⓒπ)'60 PRECISION →Num FractionalPart »
  Result: -7.50E⁻¹³, so no, not an integer, but really close

5. Verify Maxwell's value for the speed of light, epsilon0 * mu0 * c^2 = 1.

  Program: '(√(Ⓒε0·Ⓒμ0))⁻¹'  →Num 
  Result: 299 792 458.00 m/(F↑(¹/₂)·H↑(¹/₂))
  Convert to SI units: UBASE
  Result: 299 792 458. m/s
  Convert to feet per second: ³⁷⁴ ⁷⁴⁰ ⁵⁷² ⁵⁰⁰/₃₈₁ ft/s or 983 571 056.43 ft/s.

  (if you subtract the Ⓒc constant, you get -0.00031 11057 21 m/s)

6. Check the Collatz conjecture on 989345275647

  Program: « if dup 1 ≠ then if dup 2 mod then 3 × 1 + else 2 ÷ end Collatz end » 'Collatz' STO 989345275647 Collatz

  Result: 1 (conjecture is verified)

7. Given that it's now Nov 7, 00:07:51 and that a program I started on Nov 1st at 23:15:27 just finished, how long did it run?

  Program: 20241107.000751_date 20241101.231527_date - 1_h convert UVAL →HMS
  Result: 120:52:24

(the "1_h convert UVAL →HMS" should really just be →HMS, but at the moment, →HMS is not smart enough to convert from days)

When all you have is a hammer arguments are so much fun

every now and again, I download the user manual for a graphing calculator and every time I've been underwhelmed by what they have to offer.

What impresses me in this discussion is how coy everybody has been about the actual benefits of these devices.

What impresses me is how you dismiss the usefulness to other people because you can't imagine it possibly being useful to someone because it's not useful to you

I don't believe I've done that? I've said it doesn't appear that it would be useful to me - and I keep asking, probably for the 5th time now, in what way is it useful? The most cogent reply I've had so far is "0.85f’c". I don't know what that means. Please, could you explain? At this point I feel that even Apple fanboys put more effort in justifying their choices.

Do you like pen or pencil? Do you like college rule or wide rule paper? Do you like spiral or perf notebooks?

I don't need to justify my reasoning to you in a way that convinces you your way is wrong and mine is right. People like different things. I learned to use a scientific calculator as an extracurricular competition that allowed me to become very proficient at 10-key. Because of that, doing calculations on a computer goes against muscle memory. Laptops don't even have a 10-key. If I have a bunch of notes/papers with numbers that need to be added, I can pull out a calculator and just do the data entry and get a result. I don't have to go to my computer, or lug the laptop around in the shop. I just need numbers quickly crunched so I can then turn around and make a cut, drill a hole, or whatever. I don't need a large clunky compute device for that. Dropping a calculator on the shop floor is much less expensive than doing the same with a laptop. Lots of time, I just don't feel like needing to write a damn script just to get the tangent/cosine of a value to determine the lengths of the whatever.

Again, just because you have a hammer doesn't mean that you should use it drive that screw. Sometimes that tool that specifically made for purpose is better for the task at hand.

Now, pick any of the aforementioned options as to why I might prefer a calculator over a programming env just to crunch some numbers.

Thank you for explaining! So it's down to personal preference and invested training time, I wish you would just have said that to begin with. It's your hammer and you see everything as a nail. Got it.

hopefully you can now apply this in future endeavors of open mindedness that other people might do things differently than you do, and that's okay. even if you can't possibly imagine why.

today's episode has been brought to you by the letter A for acceptance and the number 9

your mind is like a steel trap - nothing gets past you!

I declare thee argument winner! Well done chap!

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