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Associative, alternative, flexible, oh my
An operation \$(\ast)\$ is associative iff
\begin{equation}
x\ast(y\ast z) = (x \ast y) \ast z
\end{equation}
for any choice of \$x\$, \$y\$, and \$z\$.
A lot of useful operations are associative. However sometimes an operation is almost associative, but ...