On 23 Feb 2009, at 19:47, Chad Perrin wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 09:48:44PM +0900, Eleanor McHugh wrote:
>> 1 2 + 3 / 4 +
>>
>> I always liked Forth's RPN simplicity :)
>
> I don't much like combining postfix notation with right-to-left
> evaluation.  I tend to think that the notation should "precede" the
> operands in the direction in which operations are evaluated.  Of  
> course,
> that's more a matter of familiarity and comfort for me than any kind  
> of
> objective criteria (other than consistency with traditional function
> notation), but it's how I feel.
>
> In other words, if the operator notation is going to be placed to the
> right of the operands, I'd prefer operands be evaluated right-to-left.
>
> Of course, I don't think *anyone* would like the way that would  
> look, so
> that pretty much breaks down to preferring prefix notation over  
> postfix
> notation.

But postfix notation is just so natural: load operands on the stack;  
operate on operands; get result from stack. Imagine how sweet Lisp  
would be without all those damn parentheses:

Brian Candler <b.candler / pobox.com> writes:
> Sure. But why would anyone want to write something like
>
>    a = b + c
>
> when they could just as easily have written
>
>    (set!
>       (quote a)
>       (+ b c))

	b c + set! a

is much easier on the eye :)


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net
----
raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason