Oddity

Just noticed an odd contradiction.

The way we learn math in school is NOT the way math is really done in business. We learned each addition as a single process with a single answer.

3 + 4 = 7

Real math by mechanical processes, from the abacus to the Addiator to adding machines to cash registers to computers, always ACCUMULATES. Each new addition goes onto the total, until you deliberately clear the accumulator.

Real math is like real cooking. When you mix several ingredients to make soup, you don’t mix each pair and serve each pair. Carrots and broth in one bowl, onions and beans in another bowl, pasta and spices in another bowl. You start with broth, add carrots, onions, beans, pasta, and spices. You serve the complete accumulator. The carrots become part of the soup just as 3 becomes part of the sum.

Doing it the school way, in all types of computers, needs an extra storage spot. In the simpler machines the extra storage is your mind or paper; adding machines and cash registers sometimes (not always) provided a separate ‘memory’ register. Early CPUs had a few extra registers, but mainly relied on memory locations outside the CPU. Newer RISC processors are meant for use in simple devices, so they have lots of registers and rely less on external storage.

The earliest high level computer languages worked like school, even though the actual computer was accumulating.

X = 3 + 4

The only way to show what really happens is by repeatedly using the same variable:

X = 0 (clear it)
X = X + 3
X = X + 4

When C introduced a direct way of showing the actual accumulation:
X = 0;
X += 3;
X += 4;

it seemed unfamiliar, and some newer languages still haven’t adopted it. Python got there in a later version.