Comment on I dunno

jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• stray@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I sometimes like to add unnecessary parentheses or brackets to section things off and improve legibility, but I don’t do any math stuff collaboratively, so I have no idea whether others would find that disruptive or helpful.

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  • Feathercrown@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I do this, sometimes it helps reveal a natural pattern when some parts of earlier terms have “disappeared” to simplification

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• SmartmanApps@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  so it would be clearer

  That’s because it’s already clear as is, as per the rules of Maths.

  I think someone told me that order of operations is like a natural law

  It’s a natural consequence of the definitions of the operators. e.g. Multiplication is shorthand for repeated Addition - 2x3=2+2+2 - so if you don’t do it before addition you end up with wrong answers. The order of operations rules is in fact just breaking everything down into Addition and Subtraction and then solving from there.

  not a convention

  There are some conventions, like left to right, but in that case that’s only because students tend to make mistakes with signs when they don’t go from left to right.

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  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    That’s because it’s already clear as is, as per the rules of Maths.

    More people evaluate 2+3x4 incorrectly than 2+(3x4). So, no, your answer does not hold up to my observed reality. You can throw as many “well technically” and “well actually” as you want, but that’s not going to fix the bug or make a pr.

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    • SmartmanApps@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      More people evaluate 2+3x4 incorrectly than 2+(3x4)

      The people who have forgotten the rules of Maths, and the mnemonics even! 😂

      So, no, your answer does not hold up to my observed reality

      So try observing a real Maths textbook then. Students have no trouble at all with this, only adults who’ve forgotten the rules.

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      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Adults who have forgotten the rules who I work with and read/write code where it’s important. In the real world.

        This is like some pure maths vs real life engineering cliché.

        You’re either being deliberately obtuse or you’re painfully naive.

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• Alaknar@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I mean, there are very few ambiguous cases when you know how the order of operations works.

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  • SmartmanApps@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I mean, there are very few ambiguous cases

    There are precisely none which are ambiguous

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• Quatlicopatlix@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Using parenthesis can really help if you want to simplify a term or need to rewrite something. I do that all the time because a lot of times you then can just cross stuff out fast on equations or get a common term that just has some factor instead of having a convolutet equation.

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• merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I got really angry because the prettier code formatter insists on removing parentheses, making things less clear. Because it’s an “opinionated” formatter you can’t tell it not to do that without using ugly hacks.

  Sure, logically there are times when you don’t need them. But, often it helps to explain what’s happening in the code when you can use parentheses to group certain things. It helps in particular when you want to use “&&” and “||” to say “do X only if Y fails”.

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  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I think you can do // prettier-ignore, because I remember facing that exact situation.

    prettier.io/docs/ignore/

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’ve done that, but that’s ugly.

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