"JE McGimpsey" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Stephen J. Herschkorn" wrote:

Ask any semi-decent high school student to
draw a graph of y = -x^2, and what will you get?

If you asked someone competent, not just semi-decent, from my high
school, or college, or graduate school, you'd get the same curve as

y = x^2


I doubt that any U.S school, including yours, teaches a different convention
than that -z is the negation of z. With z=x^2 you have -x^2 is the negation
of x^2.

Perhaps you were thinking in terms of a plotting sequence:

y = -x
plot(y^2)

which indeed would plot a positive curve, because it is plotting (-x)^2,
which is NOT the same as -x^2.

KeithK

but it's a convention, not a law, so it wouldn't be surprising to see
the negation of

y = x^2

The flaw is in assuming that you have a lock on absolute truth, rather
than recognizing that when there's ambiguity you need context.

There's no ambiguity that negation and subtraction are different. The
fact that the typography is ambiguous means that you need to check your
assumptions.

Those who insist that a computer application must conform to *their*
standard have never programmed in APL.