In code created by Apple, there is this line:
CMTimeMakeWithSeconds( newDurationSeconds, 1000*1000*1000 )
Is there any reason to express 1,000,000,000
as 1000*1000*1000
?
Why not 1000^3
for that matter?
One reason to declare constants in a multiplicative way is to improve readability, while the run-time performance is not affected. Also, to indicate that the writer was thinking in a multiplicative manner about the number.
Consider this:
double memoryBytes = 1024 * 1024 * 1024;
It's clearly better than:
double memoryBytes = 1073741824;
as the latter doesn't look, at first glance, the third power of 1024.
As Amin Negm-Awad mentioned, the ^
operator is the binary XOR
. Many languages lack the built-in, compile-time exponentiation operator, hence the multiplication.