Hi Kirby,
3 .__add__(5)
3 .__add__(5)
8
Of course this still looks strange to people who grew up in the 1900s (as I did) and think in a different paradigm.
In the old way of thinking, operations were not included in our type definitions. The idea of "adding" was somehow independent of the set theory definitions (since dispensed with) of integers for example.
I still recall the moment, when - while learning some smalltalk (after I knew Python) - one expression really impressed me: <smalltalk> 2 sin </smalltalk> Because in smalltalk nearly all expressions are message sends of the syntax receiver message this would mean the same as 2.sin() in a python-like-syntax. So 2 is an object, which you can ask to give you its sine-value. This is classical smalltalk-80. "Everything is an object" means more to me since that moment. It is interesting how they do this in smalltalk, for instance, you can easily put different kinds of number types on the left side- like "2.0 sin" gives you the same value for a float type. Actually in Python, dot-notation breaks down with this case: 2.0.sin() ??? I just noticed that. Perhaps one of the reasons smalltalk doesn't use the dot. Greetings Christian