None or 0

[Fearless Freep]

John Baxter <jwbaxter at spamcop.net> wrote in message news:<jwbaxter-3756A1.15241707092002 at corp.supernews.com>...
> In article <3d7a2b6b.92959728 at news.cybermesa.com>,
>  joconnor at cybermesa.com (Jay O'Connor) wrote:
> 
> > >Go into (English-speaking) classrooms, and you're going to hear chants 
> > >of "5 and 1 is 6" not "5 and 1 is 1".
> > 
> > Because in that contexts "and" means "plus" and in this context "and"
> > means "logical and"
> 
> Agreed and understood.  But not helpful to the programming for everyone 
> cause.

Not really.  People also understand "and" meaning a logical and as
well.  "I want the shirt that is read and size 4" or whatever.  "And"
just means that you want to combine two things, whether numbers or
conditions.  It's an ambigious concept  that people use all the time
and let the context indicate what is meant.

Of course, when we try to build that ambiguity into computer languages
and allow context to determine meaning, we usually get into trouble :)

Then again, we keep a lot of lawyers employed for the same reason when
such ambiguity causes problems in human language.

I don't think "and" as a "logical and" and not as "plus" is really a
problem in Python for non-programmers to deal with

Take care,
Jay