[Python-ideas] Adding `Unpicklable` to the `collections` module

[Ben Finney]

Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> writes:

> On 11/29/2010 12:10 AM, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>
> > I see your point but I still veto ephemeral -- as a non-native
> > English speaker with a limited vocabulary it is too obscure for me
> > (isn't it something to do with astrology? :-).
>
> You are thinking of 'ephemeris':

I interpreted the Dutch smiley as meaning that Guido was aware of that
difference :-)

> "a tabular statement of the assigned places of a celestial body for
> regular intervals ". Such tables are produced and use by astronomers
> and used by navigators to determine ship position at night. And yes,
> astrologers piggyback their crap on such tables also ;-).

To be fair, ephemerides have been produced for many thousands of years,
by people who were simultaneously practicing what we would today
distinguish as both astrology and astronomy. The astrology crap was not
piggybacked, but integral to the process and purpose of the ephemeris
from its beginning, until we finally teased them apart.

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Ben Finney