Please improve these comprehensions (was meaning of [ ])

Steven D'Aprano steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info
Wed Sep 6 01:41:19 EDT 2017


On Tue, 05 Sep 2017 18:28:02 -0700, Rustom Mody wrote:

> On Wednesday, September 6, 2017 at 6:27:24 AM UTC+5:30, Steve D'Aprano
> wrote:
>> On Wed, 6 Sep 2017 12:19 am, Rustom Mody wrote:
>> 
>> > And how do you write even the simplest assignment statement without a
>> > (mathematical) expression on the rhs?
>> 
>> name = other_name
>> 
>> is not a mathematical expression. Its giving something a new name.
>> 
>> name = obj.attribute
>> 
>> is not a mathematical expression. (That's not a dot product.)
>> 
>> 
> Ok you win (that)
> [And I see your stocks of straw are overflowing. Wholesale prices?]


A strawman fallacy is not another way of saying "Dammit, you just made a 
counter-argument that I cannot argue against."

On the other hand, false accusations of "strawman" are a form of 
poisoning the well.


As the old legal saying goes:

"When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the law is on 
your side, argue the law. When neither are on your side, pound the table."

And when you can't pound the table, accuse your opponent of committing 
the strawman fallacy.


>> > What were Turing, Church, von Neumann, even Knuth by training?
>> > Mathematicians or CS-ists?
>> > 
>> > And what are the contributions of Turing, Church, von Neumann, Knuth
>> > to CS?
>> 
>> Who cares? We're talking about Python, not Computer Science.
> 
> He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it.

I don't forget history, I just know when it is relevant and when it isn't.

Rustom, I don't care if you want to compare Python to mathematics. We 
already know the conclusion: Python is not mathematically pure. That 
doesn't make it wrong.

In fact, I would argue the opposite: by knowing when to bend, or break, 
mathematical purity in favour of more accessible idioms, Python is a 
better language for the majority of people.



> Start with your own statement: “Lisp is a functional language”
[...]
> And most significant: “McCarthy did not consider Lisp to be a functional
> language”

I didn't say it was a *pure* functional language, or a *good* one.


> Of course nothing to be surprised here: You know more java than old
> java-heads And more lisp than John McCarthy 😉

Attacking the man, instead of the argument. Is that the best you've got? 
If you're going to cast aspersions on my character, do it properly: I'm 
an arrogant, ignorant boob who dares to questions the Great Ones who 
clearly are infallible and cannot make a mistake.





-- 
Steven D'Aprano
“You are deluded if you think software engineers who can't write 
operating systems or applications without security holes, can write 
virtualization layers without security holes.” —Theo de Raadt



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