There is a dark side to this feature that I hit recently. I entered "-1 2/3=" and since I'm so accustomed to using this functionality, I didn't bother checking the result. When things went sideways, it took a few minutes to find the culprit. Entering "-1 2/3=" results in "-0.33333" (and not the "-1.66667" that I had ass-u-me-d it would be).
I thought I'd found a bug, and reported it. Support replied that:
So it appears that in a calculation, a space is interpreted as a plus sign. Hence "-1 2/3=" is read as "negative one plus two thirds".This is not really a bug, I am afraid that it is just how the math works with the notation.
To enter in 1 and 2/3 as a negative, you would need to enter in (1 2/3)*-1=
I get it, it makes the parsing dirt simple. It just caught me off guard and left me scratching my head wondering if that's hit me elsewhere that I haven't noticed (yet).
I just wanted to point this out to help others avoid the head scratching it took me to find.