Chris Rebert wrote:
_No_, because using the variable evaluates "-3" as a unit separately by itself, before the exponentiation ever occurs; it's the same as the difference between (-3)**2 and -3**2. Python is not a concatenative programming language[*]; you can't directly textually replace a variable with its value and expect to get the same result from an expression. For instance, in this case, you need to add the parentheses. Cheers, Chris -- http://blog.rebertia.com [*] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenative_language
Wow .. never heard of Concatenative_languages languages before or the distinction you make. Your distinction explains the behavior, but I find it somewhat counter-intuitive. (I use the Python interpreter frequently for small calculations - otherwise I'd never have realized this) Thanks, Esmail -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
