Pushing the envelope

[ewx]

[Poll #1198616]

Comments

[simont]

(FSVO emacs, that is.)

[emperor]

[x] on the office whiteboard

[imc.livejournal.com]

I sometimes avoid discarding envelopes that I have already written on, but I don't think this is what's meant by that poll option.

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

Obviously I don't carve the rough calculations on the moon, that's only for the final typeset output using dvi2lazcannon.

[aldabra]

[X] Windows' calculator.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

[X] in my shell with expr
[x] with bc

[atreic.livejournal.com]

In excel. I think I've been brainwashed

[lnr]

I also often use a post-it note, since they are a useful size for this and to hand, but really that's a bit wasteful.

[sparrowsion]

[X] at the Python interactive prompt (which I have several of lying around my workspaces for precisely this purpose).
[X] with Windows' shit-for-brains calculator on my phone.
[X] in my notebook.

[the-local-echo.livejournal.com]

I have a peculiar habit of never opening the payslips delivered to my desk at work, because that risks reducing the amount of space available on the back of the envelope, and increases the chance of the envelope getting thrown away by the cleaners.

It's a sad time of the month when the payslip envelope is completely filled and I have to resort to the backs of timesheets, or, as a last resort, an interactive prompt. Maybe I need to sign myself up for more junk mail at work.

[naath.livejournal.com]

[x] with the aid of Google's calculator function (it knows many more useful numbers than most other handy calculating tools). Or sometimes on whatever paper happens to be around.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

dc in arithmetic quick do i
p

(Thinking is easier on paper, especially as soon as you want a diagram)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I sometimes actually use a calculator to perform calculations, like taking the average of four numbers.

*is more ashamed than proud of this*

[davefish.livejournal.com]

I do my scrap of paper calculations about moon carving lasers.

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

google. I would use a scrap of paper but I can never find a pen(cil).

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

Also using Excel, Windows calculator or perl -e.

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

...but more frequently using command-line perl.

[gerald_duck]

[x] On the next few lines of the A4 pad I keep on my desk for this and similar purpouses.

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

[x] in Octave

[david jones (from livejournal.com)]

[X] in my logbook
[X] in awk (and [X] Python, and [X] JavaScript interactive prompt, and [X] Lisp)
[X] in dc

I used awk sufficiently often that I wrote a very short wrapper around it to evaluate and print a single expression.

and very occasionally:
[X] in C
which is to say I'll actually write a complete program in C to do some throwaway calculation.

These days I seem to be inspecting the behaviour of floating point arithmetic a lot. For that, JavaScript is surprisingly useful because: a) 64-bit IEEE double guaranteed; and, b) parsimonious printing of floating point values so you get exactly the right number of decimal digits printed.