RPN/RPL is still relevant

[Han]

(04-10-2014 07:04 PM)Matt Agajanian Wrote:  Ah, Han! I see where you're going with this.

As I've seen recently, scrolling through a history list allows a user to retrieve a full calculation, make adjustments/corrections and so forth. A very convenient undo method.

So, it seems that a scrollable display, 'Ans' key, and copy/paste functionaities have enhanced the Undo option.

Indeed -- and if done right, it would not be too difficult for complete beginners to learn how to program. One idea that many folks have surely thought about is a way to save one's work on, say, the HP Prime. I propose that we go a step further and not just enable one to save their work, but to then be able to easily turn the saved "work" into a program. Since a history is kept of all calculations on the display/history stack, imagine if the user could save that history into a text file. Then the user adds in a few lines of "code" that turns those sequences of commands into program (since a program is nothing more than a sequence of commands, right?). On the HP Prime, this is just a matter of appending

Code:

EXPORT ProgName() <-- possibly insert some parameters, if needed
BEGIN

to the beginning and an END to the end. Now they suddenly have a program that solves that particular kind of problem and they didn't really have to learn much of any programming whatsoever. It's even better than RPN programming because you essentially get to try out the solution first, and once you figured out how you want things to go, just save the history and turn it into a program.

An analogy would be, say, in Maple or Mathematica (or whatever other software you use as a CAS) saving the "worksheet" and then changing only a few minor parameters in the worksheet, and then re-running the worksheet.

This is much, much better than keystroke programming. And, pedagogically speaking, there is a much easier transition from problem solving to programming if you introduce programming to students this way.