terminological obscurity

[Arthur]

>
>  Consider use of tuples such as (hostname, port) or (firstname, lastname, 
>  middleinitial) or (x_coordinate, y_coordinate). In all cases you *know* 
>  what the first element means, what the second element means etc. It is 
>  usually not useful to find a value since the different values mean 
>  different things. You might rather do this something like - if host_port[1] 
>  == 80:... 
>
>Can you quote _both paragraphs_ of the above and point out the
>circularity in his explanation?

Given a tuple (1,1,1) representing  X,Y,Z corrdinates, I - for one -
have trouble explaining the heterogenous nature of the data, outside
of the "tuple" sense of the word. 

Similarly, "conceptual homogeniety" in this context can mean anything
- to me, pretty much  -, within the limit of describing data elements
that it might be  sensible to handle together in a list.   
>
>I don't know if homogeneity is the most useful term to get at the
>distinction as I understand it, but evidently that's how Guido tried
>to explain it, so that's where we start.  It can take some explaining.
>We could try to think of better ways to approach it - maybe bring in
>the notion of a tuple as a "product" of its elements - but the parties
>to that discussion would have to 1) understand the distinction, and
>2) not be satisfied with the way it's currently explained.  No sign
>of anyone in that corner yet.

The best reason to describe the current explanations as a tautology,
is precsiely because it can only really be understood as a meaningful
explanation to those who don't really need one.  It does little, in my
opinion, to serve as help for those who might.

Especially, or at least, outside the context of a ten or more post
thread of the dialetics.

Art