Submitted by TheManNamedPeterPan t3_z8c5vf in explainlikeimfive
DecentChanceOfLousy t1_iydvi3w wrote
Reply to comment by Cypher1388 in ELI5 why we first multiply, then add by TheManNamedPeterPan
Yup. Programming languages or technical formulas end up having so many parenthesis that most editors support color coding or matched pair highlighting so you can sort out which is which. And you'd need more if every operation had to have parenthesis around it to clarify which order it's supposed to be done in. If you kept the left-to-right convention (despite throwing other conventions which are no more arbitrary away), you could reorder some things to remove a bit of the confusion. But it wouldn't help nearly as much as every symbol having an order of operations so you skip as many parenthesis as possible while remaining unambiguous.
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