Python for philosophers
Ned Batchelder
ned at nedbatchelder.com
Sat May 11 22:46:38 EDT 2013
On 5/11/2013 4:03 PM, Citizen Kant wrote:
> Hi,
> this could be seen as an extravagant subject but that is not my
> original purpose. I still don't know if I want to become a programmer
> or not. At this moment I'm just inspecting the environment. I'm making
> my way to Python (and OOP in general) from a philosophical perspective
> or point of view and try to set the more global definition of Python's
> core as an "entity". In order to do that, and following Wittgenstein's
> indication about that the true meaning of words doesn't reside on
> dictionaries but in the use that we make of them, the starting
> question I make to myself about Python is: which is the single and
> most basic use of Python as the entity it is? I mean, beside
> programming, what's the single and most basic result one can expect
> from "interacting" with it directly (interactive mode)? I roughly came
> to the idea that Python could be considered as an *economic mirror for
> data*, one that mainly *mirrors* the data the programmer types on its
> black surface, not exactly as the programmer originally typed it, but
> expressed in the most economic way possible. That's to say, for
> example, if one types >>>1+1 Python reflects >>>2. When data appears
> between apostrophes, then the mirror reflects, again, the same but
> expressed in the most economic way possible (that's to say without the
> apostrophes).
>
> So, would it be legal (true) to define Python's core as an entity that
> mirrors whatever data one presents to it (or feed it with) showing
> back the most shortened expression of that data?
>
> Don't get me wrong. I can see the big picture and the amazing things
> that programmers write on Python, it's just that my question points to
> the lowest level of it's existence.
>
> Thanks a lot for your time.
>
>
Python is straightforward: you write instructions, and it executes
them. At its core, that's all it does. Why does the core have to be
any different than that?
--Ned.
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