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Show HN: All desktop software calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own

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Re: Show HN: All desktop software calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own

#121

Post by charcircuit »

fendy3002 wrote: post #96
CrendKing wrote: post #83

The one thing I don't get about all those calculator applications is the existence of the keypad. Like, the users already have the keypad right in front them called keyboard (the names literally share the "key" part). Why would anyone instead choose to use mouse to click those tiny buttons? I feel most calc designers still stuck at the skeuomorphism and never jump out of the box to think about what user really needs.…

Well until you need scientific calculator computation, such as log, sin / cos, rad / deg, root.

Your keyboard has letters on it. You can type all of those out.

Re: Show HN: All desktop software calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own

#122

Post by avmich »

antholeole wrote: post #116
CrendKing wrote: post #83

The one thing I don't get about all those calculator applications is the existence of the keypad. Like, the users already have the keypad right in front them called keyboard (the names literally share the "key" part). Why would anyone instead choose to use mouse to click those tiny buttons? I feel most calc designers still stuck at the skeuomorphism and never jump out of the box to think about what user really needs.…

Desmos.com/scientific is my go to. Best calculator ever - understands some LaTeX but also has the buttons for scenarios where I don’t know the LaTeX

If you have a J interpreter installed, I'd like to see what preferred calculators can offer.

Re: Show HN: All desktop software calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own

#123

Post by CydeWeys »

charcircuit wrote: post #121
fendy3002 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well until you need scientific calculator computation, such as log, sin / cos, rad / deg, root.

Your keyboard has letters on it. You can type all of those out.

The one disadvantage of that is you cannot easily see all available functions at once. It loses discoverability. Autocomplete on the input prompt will help rectify that somewhat, but only somewhat.

Re: Show HN: All desktop software calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own

#124

Post by CydeWeys »

chacha21 wrote: post #36
kqr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second the usefulness of the calculator built into Emacs. Even if I didn't use Emacs for anything else, I'd keep an alias around for starting calc.

I agree, but as good as it is, this is not where people would like to find a good calculator.

How is an OS not a good place to find a calculator?

Re: Show HN: All desktop software calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own

#125

Post by user3939382 »

CrendKing wrote: post #83

The one thing I don't get about all those calculator applications is the existence of the keypad. Like, the users already have the keypad right in front them called keyboard (the names literally share the "key" part). Why would anyone instead choose to use mouse to click those tiny buttons? I feel most calc designers still stuck at the skeuomorphism and never jump out of the box to think about what user really needs.…

Checkout Soulver on macOS. It’s awesome! It’s like an old paper tape calculator on steroids. It supports variables and comments, for example. Also, no virtual keypad :)

Re: Show HN: All desktop software calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own

#126

Post by qsort »

CydeWeys wrote: post #123
charcircuit wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your keyboard has letters on it. You can type all of those out.

The one disadvantage of that is you cannot easily see all available functions at once. It loses discoverability. Autocomplete on the input prompt will help rectify that somewhat, but only somewhat.

The discoverability argument doesn't make a lot of sense for a calculator app.

One might want to list the content of a directory without knowing that the magic word is "ls", but there is a 0% chance that someone wants to compute the cosine of a number but can't figure out to type "cos".

Re: Show HN: All desktop software calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own

#128

Post by upbeat_general »

user3939382 wrote: post #125
CrendKing wrote: post #83

The one thing I don't get about all those calculator applications is the existence of the keypad. Like, the users already have the keypad right in front them called keyboard (the names literally share the "key" part). Why would anyone instead choose to use mouse to click those tiny buttons? I feel most calc designers still stuck at the skeuomorphism and never jump out of the box to think about what user really needs.…

Checkout Soulver on macOS. It’s awesome! It’s like an old paper tape calculator on steroids. It supports variables and comments, for example. Also, no virtual keypad :)

+1

The real draw is the unit support (dates, times, currency, etc etc) but makes it feel natural.

Re: Show HN: All desktop software calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own

#129

Post by jart »

qsort wrote: post #126
CydeWeys wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one disadvantage of that is you cannot easily see all available functions at once. It loses discoverability. Autocomplete on the input prompt will help rectify that somewhat, but only somewhat.

The discoverability argument doesn't make a lot of sense for a calculator app. One might want to list the content of a directory without knowing that the magic word is "ls", but there is a 0% chance that someone wants to compute the cosine of a number but can't figure out to type "cos".

But is it cos x, cos(x), cos[x], math.cos(x), or \cos x? Calculators are usually simple enough that all the ops can be buttons. So why not do it? There's always alternatives like Python, Mathematica, Maxima, Fricas, etc. which don't really bother with the buttons, because if they did, it'd look like a Chinese typewriter.
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