Is GNU Calc worth the effort to learn?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jonathan Aquino
  • Start date Start date
J

Jonathan Aquino

GNU Calc is the calculator that is built into the Emacs text editor.
It can do an incredible amount of stuff, but the learning curve is
very steep. If you use GNU Calc heavily, would you tell me whether it
is really worth the effort to learn?

#end
 
Jonathan said:
GNU Calc is the calculator that is built into the Emacs text editor.
It can do an incredible amount of stuff, but the learning curve is
very steep. If you use GNU Calc heavily, would you tell me whether it
is really worth the effort to learn?
Click to expand...
If you are already learning Emacs, then adding in Calc is microscopic.

Cheers,
Gary B-)
 
Jonathan Aquino escreveu:
GNU Calc is the calculator that is built into the Emacs text editor.
It can do an incredible amount of stuff, but the learning curve is
very steep. If you use GNU Calc heavily, would you tell me whether it
is really worth the effort to learn?
Click to expand...

I don't use Emacs that much, my editor is VI.

But if you're already an user of Emacs the calculator is useful.

[]s
--
Chaos Master®, posting from Brazil.
"People told me I can't dress like a fairy.
I say, I'm in a rock band and I can do what the hell I want!"
-- Amy Lee

The Evanescen(t/ce) HP: http://marreka.no-ip.com
 
Gary R. Schmidt said:
If you are already learning Emacs, then adding in Calc is microscopic.

Cheers,
Gary B-)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response, Gary and Chaos. I've been using Emacs for a
couple of years at work, and yes I use calc for quick additions or
multiplies. But I started working through the calc tutorial, and it is
quite extensive - calculus, matrices, programming, stack truncation,
etc. etc., and learning all the commands and keyboard shortcuts ...
I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. Have you gone through the tutorial and
found the advanced stuff useful? If not, I'll just stick to the basics
(or use Google calculator).
 
Chaos Master said:
Jonathan Aquino escreveu:
GNU Calc is the calculator that is built into the Emacs text editor.
It can do an incredible amount of stuff, but the learning curve is
very steep. If you use GNU Calc heavily, would you tell me whether it
is really worth the effort to learn?
Click to expand...

I don't use Emacs that much, my editor is VI.

But if you're already an user of Emacs the calculator is useful.

[]s
Click to expand...

Hi Chaos - I do computer programming and am wondering if learning Gnu
Calc will be a worthwhile mental exercise (exercise those brain
cells!), or a pointless waste of time better spent learning other
things.
 
Jonathan Aquino wrote:
[Combining 2 messages...]
Thanks for the response, Gary and Chaos. I've been using Emacs for a
couple of years at work, and yes I use calc for quick additions or
multiplies. But I started working through the calc tutorial, and it is
quite extensive - calculus, matrices, programming, stack truncation,
etc. etc., and learning all the commands and keyboard shortcuts ...
I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. Have you gone through the tutorial and
found the advanced stuff useful? If not, I'll just stick to the basics
(or use Google calculator). and
Hi Chaos - I do computer programming and am wondering if learning Gnu
Calc will be a worthwhile mental exercise (exercise those brain
cells!), or a pointless waste of time better spent learning other
things.
Click to expand...

Well, it depends just what sort of programming you do, or intend to do...

I mainly use my trusty non-programmable Casio calculator for stuff when
I can't be bothered firing up /bc/, but then I mainly do systems-type
programming, so it's mainly Hex-Dec-Oct-Bin conversions.

When I was involved in the joys of financial programming, I had a TI
financial calculator, with a lot of stuff programmed in to it.

That said, I've done very little "calculation" as part of my job in the
last 15 or so years. Back before usable source-level debuggers, or when
I was working on bare silicon, I'd spend a lot of time calculating
offsets and what _should_ be in a register and so forth, these days I
think the only time I actually calculate is when I want to triple-check
an arc-cosine or the like, which happens about once a year.

The main advantage of the Emacs calculator is that it is inside the one
kitchen sink (I'm a vi user since 1980 (and vim since whenever it was I
discovered it)), and as you have already made the investment to learn
Emacs it would be foolish not to learn as much of the calculator stuff
as you feel would be usable for *you*, which may, of course, be no more
than you have mastered already.

Cheers,
Gary B-)
 
Gary R. Schmidt escreveu:
Well, it depends just what sort of programming you do, or intend to do...

I mainly use my trusty non-programmable Casio calculator for stuff when
I can't be bothered firing up /bc/, but then I mainly do systems-type
programming, so it's mainly Hex-Dec-Oct-Bin conversions.
Click to expand...

When I need to do calculation, I fire Emu48 (HP-48 calculator emulator).
Overkill for base conversions but..

[]s
--
Chaos Master®, posting from Brazil.
"People told me I can't dress like a fairy.
I say, I'm in a rock band and I can do what the hell I want!"
-- Amy Lee

The Evanescen(t/ce) HP: http://marreka.no-ip.com
 
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