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I'm not 100% sure about this. A counterexample is the popularity of RPN. HP's RPN calculators with postfix notation are well-loved among some engineers, scientists, and accountants, precisely because of the benefits of RPN over infix notation. I have a HP-48SX calculator, and I regularly use the `dc` command on Unix machines and in WSL whenever I need access to a calculator while I'm on a computer. Of course, I am proficient in prefix, infix, and postfix notation, but I like postfix notation the most.

Of course, though, the marketshare of TI's infix calculators is much higher than HP's RPN calculators, and I haven't heard of much recent developments regarding HP's calculator line (the last I heard was HP had a limited-edition re-release of the famous HP 15c model sometime back in 2011, and also earlier this decade HP released a graphing calculator with a color display). But nevertheless there are people who prefer RPN to infix.




The thing about RPN is that it worked well as a sort-of "spoken not written" language. It's a clear and usable way to give instructions one-at-a-time to a calculator with a 1-line display.

But written out on paper, it's very hard to see what's going on at a glance, which is why nobody does this on paper.

Almost anyone programming in mathematical expressions of reasonable complexity today will spend much more time reading (and triple-checking!) these expressions than typing them. That's a strong reason to like infix notation, and in general notation close to what you would use on paper.


Those TI calculators are real cool, I cut my teeth as a programmer on a TI-83+ learning z80 assembly, but the truth is they're considered by many to be devices for teenagers. HP calculators seem far more popular in industry.




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