newRPL: The complexity of complex mode

[Claudio L.]

(08-21-2016 06:46 AM)Nigel (UK) Wrote:  Whenever I have encountered infinities in what I've done it has always been in the context of some sort of limiting process. A CAS needs to handle such limits correctly but a "simple" calculator does not. The answer to any division by zero depends on how the limit is approached. I'd be happy with just infinity or even just an overflow for all non-CAS operations.

Can anyone think of any exceptions?

Nigel (UK)

In my field too, if you hit a NaN or infinity it pretty much means something went wrong, and it's the end of your calculations.
I guess the question is if newRPL is a "simple" calculator. It will (or may) have a CAS in the future, but that's relatively far in the future. Ideally, this future CAS should fit like a glove in the newRPL environment, to avoid having Home and CAS as separate modes (ring a bell?). In that regards, newRPL should handle infinities consistently from the first day.

But in my limited knowledge and usage pattern, I don't know of any case where it would be useful to get a directed infinity as a result, for example. I'd like for somebody to give an example or something, just to get my head around the idea.