newRPL: [UPDATED April 27-2017] Firmware for testing available for download

[Helix]

(10-25-2015 01:52 AM)Claudio L. Wrote:  

(10-24-2015 08:30 PM)Helix Wrote:  I'm not sure I undestand what you mean. An identifier without quotes is evaluated immediately. Could you give a short example of what you think?

Yes, but the quotes work only when the identifier is by itself, not inside an expression. The idea is that 'X.+2' evaluates X immediately, because the user "requested" it by adding the trailing dot.
There should be a command to make certain variables in an expression evaluate, perhaps:
'X^2+Y' 'Y' ->EVALNOW would produce the expression 'X^2+Y.' which would cause Y to be evaluated immediately next time the expressions is executed or operated upon. If Y is 4, then:

'X^2+Y' 1 + --> 'X^2+Y+1'
'X^2+Y.' 1 + --> 'X^2+5'

In the second case, only the Y was evaluated automatically, X will not be evaluated unless EVAL is called on the expression.

What I meant is that the name ->APPROX doesn't really work for variables, should be something like the EVALNOW above.

Thank you for your explanations, I understand now.
For this command, another possible name could be VAREVAL, or VEVAL, because it allows the evaluation of a variable, and this name is more consistent with existing RPL commands like PEVAL, SYSEVAL, KEYEVAL…
Or it could be also IMEVAL or IMDEVAL, for "immediate evaluation"…

(10-25-2015 12:45 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  

(10-23-2015 10:04 PM)Helix Wrote:  ALPHA mode:
- it is easy to use now, and I can say it is intuitive for me.
- I think that ENTRY works now as it should work in program mode. In algebraic mode, I think that some keys should remain active, for example the HIST key (or the STO key depending of the settings for the menus). This would permit to create a variable A with the sequence:
' ALPHA A ' ' HIST (or ' ALPHA+A HIST) instead of ' ALPHA A ENTER HIST

This is no different from the 50g. Once you are in alpha mode, STO, HIST, etc. they all have letters, so I don't know how we could keep it active.
Alpha-hold+A then HIST does what you are looking for.

I've made a mistake in my previous post. Here is the corrected suggestion:
' alpha A alpha alpha HIST doesn't work
' alpha-hold+A HIST is equivalent, and doesn't work either.
I happen to use the equivalent sequence with my 50g when the variable A already exists, so I think this possibility is missing in the current version of newRPL.
The same thing applies to EVAL instead of HIST (but probably not very useful with EVAL).

(10-25-2015 12:45 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  Autocomplete is quite simple and only tries to save you keystrokes, it's not a heuristic search engine. For instance, I found it very useful when I was doing some unit conversions the other day, just type CON and Alpha+Right will complete "CONVERT".
It's not intended as a replacement for a catalog. If you want a catalog where you can search for a command, that's a different feature, which will likely exist at some point.

I can understand that you find this feature useful, but if the list will remain incomplete and disordered I'm almost sure that I will never use it. In that case, to answer one of your previous questions, help comments for these commands in the status area is certainly not a priority for me.