[Python-Dev] Order of operations

[Jason Orendorff]

On 8/29/07, Dirkjan Ochtman <dirkjan at ochtman.nl> wrote:
> Alexandre Vassalotti wrote:
> > C doesn't have an exponentiation operator. You use the pow() function, instead:
>
> Wouldn't it make more sense, then, to have unary +/- have higher
> precedence than the ** operator, so that -3**2 == 9?

No, that would have been really bad.  Anyone who's had high school
algebra expects -x**2 to be -(x**2) and not (-x)**2.

I think the weirdness comes from parsing -a/b as (-a)/b rather than
-(a/b).  It should be the latter, if compatibility with math notation
is more important than compatibility with C.   Oh well.  Maybe in
Python 4.  :)

-j