% is not an operator [was Re: Verbose and flexible args and kwargs syntax]

[Jussi Piitulainen]

Steven D'Aprano writes:
> On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:56:02 +0200, Jussi Piitulainen wrote:
> > I'm not misunderstanding any argument. There was no
> > argument. There was a blanket pronouncement that _in mathematics_
> > mod is not a binary operator. I should learn to challenge such
> > pronouncements and ask what the problem is. Maybe next time.
> 
> So this was *one* person making that claim?

I've seen it a few times from a few different posters, all on Usenet
or whatever this thing is nowadays called. I think I was careful to
say _some_ mathematicians, but not careful to check that any of them
were actually mathematicians speaking as mathematicians.

The context seems to be a cultural divide between maths and cs. Too
much common ground yet very different interests?

> I understand that, in general, mathematicians don't have much need
> for a remainder function in the same way programmers do -- modulo
> arithmetic is far more important. But there's a world of difference
> between saying "In mathematics, extracting the remainder is not
> important enough to be given a special symbol and treated as an
> operator" and saying "remainder is not a binary operator". The first
> is reasonable; the second is not.

Yes.