How do you calculate?

[Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda]

On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Nadav Har'El <nyh at math.technion.ac.il>wrote:

> For years, I've been wondering: How do other Unix or Linux users do simple
> calculations?
>
> Do you take out an actual physical calculator (which is of course
> ridiculous)?
> Do you use software that looks like a physical calculator (xcalc, kcalc,
> etc.)?
>
> Or do you use bc? Does anyone actually use bc, which returns "0" as a
> result
> for the calculation "2/3"? :-) Of course, you can use "scale=10" (or the -l
> option to bc) to fix that, but how many first-time users would know that?
> What posessed the person who decided to make scale=0 the default? :-)
>

Indeed this is why I rarely use bc (and I am sorry when I do). For  most
purposes (that is, if I do not need a math function, which is not loaded
when no executable is loaded), I use gdb.


> What I have been using myself, is my own version of Kernighan & Pike's
> "Hoc"
> (see http://nadav.harel.org.il/homepage/hoc/). But since this didn't catch
> on,
> as didn't the original Hoc (which was available in Research Unix and Plan
> 9,
> but not anywhere else), unfortunately I'm one of the few who do. All of the
> rest are missing on the convenience of Hoc ;-)
>
> So I was wondering - how come there isn't more pressure on the Linux
> distributions to include a decent and convenient calculator language?
> Or do people consider what is available decent enough already?
>
> Nadav.
>
> --
> Nadav Har'El                        |      Thursday, May 20 2010, 7 Sivan
> 5770
> nyh at math.technion.ac.il
> |-----------------------------------------
> Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Despite the cost of living, have you
> http://nadav.harel.org.il           |noticed how it remains so popular?
>
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-- 
Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda.
http://ladypine.org
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