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<p>Well, see, now there are *three* different meanings under
discussion. There's the unary operator and the binary operator
(which most programming languages unify but which cannot be
unified in postfix notation, as you say), and also the negative
number syntax. APL, iirc, does indeed use "-" for both
subtraction and negation, i.e. both operators, but the high-minus
was *not* an operator, it was part of a numeric literal, it's how
you wrote "negative three" (as opposed to writing "the negation of
three.") Given APL's strict (lack of) operator precedence, it
could be inconvenient to have to write negative numbers as
operators applied to positive numbers, but a syntax element
doesn't have that issue. That's why I compared it to Lojban's
{ni'u} as opposed to {vu'u}.</p>
<p><br>
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<p>~mark<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/3/22 05:27, Alex Plantema via
Unicode wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:fc0e5ecb-bd04-2305-6bc2-d4308b4e5925@xs4all.nl">
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Op do 03-11-2022 om 02:46 schreef Tim
Partridge via Unicode:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:LO2P265MB48064DBC80A805A9A9BED79AF4389@LO2P265MB4806.GBRP265.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM">
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charset=UTF-8">
<style type="text/css" style="display:none;">P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;}</style><span
style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I suspect
most programming languages follow the unification of hyphen
and minus on typewriter keyboards which led to early character
standards doing the same.</span>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial,
Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <br>
</div>
<div class="elementToProof" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial,
Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <span
style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also
number formatting and parsing routines use the dual use
character for negative numbers and tend not to recognise
U+2122.</span><br>
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<br>
</blockquote>
Such a unification isn't possible in postfix notation, unless
negations are replaced by subtractions from zero.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46861254/infix-to-postfix-for-negative-numbers"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46861254/infix-to-postfix-for-negative-numbers</a><br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="2147483647">--
Alex.</pre>
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