3 ms·
Just a quick word about polish notation: The only reason why humans seem to prefer infix notation, is because it is what's being taught in school. The first ma
by usrbinbash 5y ago
Just a quick word about polish notation:
The only reason why humans seem to prefer infix notation, is because it is what's being taught in school. The first mathematical expressions most people get to see is
1 + 1
There is no reason why someone who was introduced to
+ 1 1
at an early age would find it less "natural" than infix. I think the only reason why infix is the dominant notation is historical: Prefix notation relies on getting whitespace right as a deliminator, and that is a lot tougher to do in handwriting. Infix solved this problem by (ab)using the operator as a deliminator.
- cowl 5y agoThat is not necessarily true. the first tells me we are starting with 1 apple and adding another one. the second tells me that we are starting with Adding? Adding what? We never start with an action without having a object/subject in mind.
- b3morales 5y agoYou are still starting from your own learned context. Other languages than English have different word order conventions. As a simple extreme example, in classical Latin the main verb generally is placed last in the sentence.
- wraptile 5y agoWhite space is bad for readability anyways. I don't think that would be doable.
- WalterBright 5y agoAncient texts always seem to have no word breaks, they're just a solid wall of letters.
- usrbinbash 5y ago> White space is bad for readability anyways. Question{Which|of|these|sentences|is|easier|to|read;This|one?} Or this one in the next line?
- wraptile 5y agoI meant in the context of programming.