
...we've got a fairly lively discussion going and a whole lot of knowledgable people all saying they've been taught different things at school...
(edit)
I started doing Maths at 'A'-level and I remember being taught Multiplication came before Division (as has also been mentioned here).
I guess, within a given group of people (say, a regional area) if everyone uses the same notation, it doesn't matter as everyone will get the same answer. It's when you go wider that you get problems...
( , Sun 5 Jun 2011, 11:39, Reply)

yet my application of it day to day has always produced the answers *I* perceive as correct and it's always done what I expected it to.
That's really rather odd, you would have thought at some point I'd have had something throw up an anomaly that made me think 'WTF!?' and question what I was doing wrong, esp when using ye olde computers that had to be programmed...
( , Sun 5 Jun 2011, 11:46, Reply)

Yeh ya just used the Dragon 32's preloaded games engine that emulated 3 dimensional physics for you, eh?
( , Sun 5 Jun 2011, 20:58, Reply)

I had a proper computer - 64 all the way. :-).
( , Mon 6 Jun 2011, 21:53, Reply)