2**2**2**2**2 wrong? Bug?

[Paul McGuire]

On Jul 11, 3:53 pm, "Evan Klitzke" <e... at yelp.com> wrote:
> On 7/11/07, Paul McGuire <p... at austin.rr.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 11, 12:04 pm, David Jones <david.l.jo... at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > In fact, if I put (2**2)**2**2**2
> > > > it comes up with the correct answer, 4294967296
>
> > > Actually, the "correct" answer (even by your own demonstration) is
> > > 65536.
>
> > It might be easier to demonstrate if we chose a less homogeneous
> > problem: 2**3**2.  A right (rightly?) associative language (such as
> > Python) reads this as 2**(3**2), or 2**9=512.  A left-associative
> > language (such as VB) reads this as (2**3)**2 or 8**2=64.  As was
> > pointed out earlier, left-associativity with exponentiation is of
> > little value, since (2**3)**2 is the same as 2**(3*2) or 2**6=64.
>
> It doesn't have anything to do with the language being left/right
> associative, it has to do with the operators in question. For example,
> subtraction is always left associative -- you would be really
> surprised if 3 - 2 - 1 evaluated to 2. Python happens to choose right
> associativity for exponentiation because it is more useful for that
> operator, but that doesn't make the language itself right associative.
>
> --
> Evan Klitzke <e... at yelp.com>

Sorry, I meant that Python was right-associative only with respect to
exponentiation.  All other arithmetic operators are left-to-right (and
rightly so).  By contrast, VisualBasic evaluates exponentiation left-
to-right, so for the sake of this thread, VB is a left-associative
exponentiation language.

-- Paul