Python Metalanguage confusticates and bebothers me...

[Johann Hibschman]

Jonadab the Unsightly One writes:

> Python itself is okay (well, so far anyway).  But the 
> metalanguage -- the terminology used to discuss features 
> of the language -- is weirding me out.  "Dictionaries"
> aren't dictionaries at all, they're associative arrays.
> "Tuples" don't necessarily have three elements.  I 
> suppose once I get used to this stuff it'll be okay...
> but it reminds me of Reinhold Neibuhr.

Um.  "Dictionary" is a common word for associative arrays, and there
is nothing in the word "tuple" which implies 3.  Now if they were
called "triplets", that would be something different.

-- 
Johann Hibschman                           johann at physics.berkeley.edu