Recursive Descent Over Shunting-Yard: Building a Mathematically Correct Expression Parser

Many math expression evaluators fail on edge cases like right-associativity of exponentiation and the precedence of unary negation, where -2^2 should equal -4, not 4. This article advocates for recursive descent parsing because it maps BNF grammar directly to code structure, making both implementation and debugging transparent. Developers will find this approach invaluable for understanding parser fundamentals and building production-quality expression evaluators that handle mathematical conventions correctly.