Re: I disagree about the 48 and RPN Message #40 Posted by Raymond Del Tondo on 31 Mar 2004, 4:51 p.m., in response to message #39 by Tony Duell
Hi Tony,
>I feel that which of {4 level RPN} or {'infinite' level RPN/RPL} you prefer depends on which you learnt first.
>
Not always.
The calc I learnt the phantastic RPN with was a 33E which a friend lent me for a few days. After that experience, I bought my first HP-41C and HP-11C, and used and programmed them (especially the 41) every day, mainly in ML.
Writing RPN programs with optimal stack usage was a nice game, at least at the user code level. The automatic T duplication or seamless stack roll feature were (and are) very handy sometimes.
But it can lead to a very dirty program style, because you never have to clean up the stack mess your program left.
With the event of the first RPL machine (28C) I (and many other people) had to learn the new stack concept. First it seemed a bit difficult, but after all it's as easy to handle as the traditional RPN stack.
When programming in RPL, you have to watch your stack parameters, and take care of other programs' stack parameters.
However, both worlds have their advantages. For programming I much prefer the HP-48 (RPL and ML), for daily adding of a few values the HP-41 is more handy, but I sometimes ask myself how I could be satisfied by a single line display for all these years;-)
Regards,
Raymond
|