bc

ions, that is, the unary minus has higher precedence than exponentiation, so in those languages −3² will be interpreted as (−3)² = 9. This does not apply to the binary minus operation '−'; for example in Microsoft Excel while the formulas =-2^2, =-(2)^2 and =0+-2^2 return 4, the formulas =0-2^2 and =-(2^2) return −4. (edit) Digging into this a little bit more... https://www.gnu.org/software/bc/manual/html_mono/bc.html#TOC... The expression precedence is as follows: (lowest to highest) || operator, left associative && operator, left associative ! operator, nonassociative Relational operators, left associative Assignment operator, right associative + and - operators, left associative *, / and % operators, left associative ^ operator, right associative unary - operator, nonassociative ++ and -- operators, nonassociative This precedence was chosen so that POSIX compliant bc programs will run correctly. This will cause the use of the relational and logical operators to have some unusual behavior when used with assignment expressions. Consider the expression: ... This brings us to the POSIX specification for bc https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799.2018edition... This also shows the unary - having higher precedence than ^. https://github.com/gavinhoward/bc/blob/master/manuals/develo... This document is meant for the day when I (Gavin D. Howard) get hit by a bus. In other words, it's meant to make the bus factor a non-issue. This document is supposed to contain all of the knowledge necessary to develop bc and dc. In addition, this document is meant to add to the oral tradition of software engineering, as described by Bryan Cantrill. ... now, it would be interesting if gavinhoward could clarify some of the design thoughts there (and I absolutely love the oral tradition talk).

ovide excellent support [4] for paying clients. [0]: https://gavinhoward.com/2023/12/is-source-available-really-t... [1]: https://git.yzena.com/Yzena/Yc/src/branch/master/docs/yao [2]: https://git.yzena.com/Yzena/Yc/src/branch/master/docs/rig [3]: https://git.yzena.com/Yzena/Yc/src/branch/master/docs/yar [4]: https://github.com/gavinhoward/bc/issues/66

oice and touch will stand out more. You can see this in his essay, versus the two written by the bot. The voice of the bot ones feels more stilted to me. His feels more natural. What people need to do is to develop their own voice and touch. In writing, develop your voice. Write without help. Write a lot. Create a blog. Put random stupid stuff there. Let yourself rant. That random stupid stuff and those rants will not be mainstream, and if it's stupid and ranty, you won't have to care about quality. That lack of care will let you have fun, and that fun will become your voice. This is how I developed my voice with my blog. In code, develop your touch. Don't just code; design. Think about concepts. Think about UX and workflows. Iterate until everything is great. Then design the implementation and iterate until everything fits. Then, and only then, code. But as you code, iterate the design to remove things that no longer fit and add things that do. Dogfood your software. Use it for everything you can, even things that don't fit well. Iterate and change some more to make your dogfooding easier. The end result will be software that is easy-to-use and fits the users' needs well. That fit will be your touch. This is how I developed my touch with my most well-known project: `bc`. [1] But you don't even need to stop there. With my `bc`, I spent time supporting users and implementing things for them. Obviously, I still designed changes before implementing them, but I listened to my users and gave them what they wanted within the constraints I had. The end result is a `bc` that can act like the GNU `bc` or the BSD `bc`, whichever you want. It can also be its own thing with extra features. Listening to users is another human touch. Make use of it. In fact, that's where I will make a living from my current project: my support for it will be best-in-class [2], and that's something GPT can never replicate because it cannot replicate my brain, my voice, and my touch, even when trained on my writing. In other words, the author is write that the 90% is useless, but those 90% were the ones where you were at least partially imitating a bot anyway. Those 10% are the human traits. If you want to have useful skills, be a human, not a fleshy bot. Footnote: I feel bad for anyone that gets my code or writing as output from GPT. My code fits my head and no one else's. It also uses custom API's that don't exist anywhere else, which means such output would be useless. The same goes for my writing, though to a lesser extent. [1]: https://github.com/gavinhoward/bc [2]: https://github.com/gavinhoward/bc/issues/66