Is RPN still relevant?

[cyrille de brébisson]

Hello,

There are a number of cases and places where RP* is still relevant, makes sense, allows to do things faster.

Educational math, is not, however, in my opinion, one of them.

RP* is very efficient, and also has a great advantage when you have intermediate, temporary results that you need to keep around.

HOWEVER, and this is the crux of the issue, in educational setting, you usually deal with cases where the 'student' will walk one small step at a time, do some more 'reading/learning', move the next step, etc.
This means that time will lapse between 2 steps on the calculator. During these 2 steps, he will have forgotten what is on each stack level and get stuck/make mistakes.
Algebraic does let you 'see' what you entered, modify it, review it...
Since algebraic does NOT have temporary, unnamed storage (the stack), it forces you to place stuff in variables (which takes longer and is less efficient), BUT is much more explicit, it is more adapted to this setting.

RP*, as stated above is GREAT for quick (in both sense of the term) calculations.
A RP* expert, who knows where he comes from and where he wants to go can even do very complex operation. However, after a while, even he will have to start writing stuff down.

Algebraic is more verbose, and as all verbose things, is both more explicit and longer.

As education is moving away from calculations toward higher level concepts, assuming that in the future more and more complex calculations will be done "by the tools", it does make sense to move way from RP* (sadly enough).

We see the same thing happening with computer languages with the move from Assembly toward C and now 'modern' C++ which is incredibly verbose and frustrating for a C 'old timer'.

This does not mean that RP* will completely disappear, but, like the hammer**, its use will probably slow down as other solutions, more adapted to the modern world, will appear, or as the world changes around it. The hammer is still used today, and so will RP* stay alive, BUT most a large number of 'old times' nails have been replaced by screws, and a large number of the leftover nails are put in using a pneumatic air-gun, not a hammer.

Cyrille, in a philosopher mood.

*N or L, pick your poison :-)
** probably not a good example, but I will use it anyway