PEP 526 - var annotations and the spirit of python
Steven D'Aprano
steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info
Tue Jul 3 19:51:50 EDT 2018
On Tue, 03 Jul 2018 09:14:37 -0700, Jim Lee wrote:
> On 07/03/18 01:34, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> I said *indefinite* not infinite.
>
> Yes, you did. My bad.
Thanks Jim, your acknowledgement is appreciated.
>> You did read the article I linked to, right? You know that people don't
>> suddenly and instantly turn from "beginner" to "expert" when they
>> exceed 9,999 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds? Quibbling over the exact
>> number of hours is foolish.
>
>
> Of course I know that. I've been familiar with the concept for a long
> time. I've taught several guitarists and have seen it first hand. I've
> also trained several programmers.
Okay, so you *do* understand that the "ten thousand hours" concept is a
rough, order of magnitude, average figure. Great. Which makes your
quibbling over whether it is 10,000 hours or five years or two years all
the more mysterious.
> Quibbling over the exact number of hours *is* foolish - but nobody was
> doing that.
Ah nice to see the ol' "deny everything" debating tactic.
> I was simply pointing out that you used three vastly
> different numbers in almost the same breath to describe how long it
> takes a person to master something.
I love watching pedantically precise people panic and dig themselves into
a hole. Since I'm an extremely pedantic person myself, I can recognise it
in others -- especially when they're not as precisely correct as they
think they're being.
It was two numbers, not three, and not even close to "vastly" different.
Both numbers I mentioned (ten thousand hours, a couple of years) are
within the bounds of acceptable precision to each other: their
(figurative) error bars overlap.
My first reference to the number was in quotation marks: "10,000 hours",
not 10,000 hours. That was your first hint that I was not using it as a
precise number, but as a "vague quantifier" (to give the technical name
for the concept).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefinite_and_fictitious_numbers#Specific_numbers_used_as_indefinite
My second reference was to EXPLICITLY state the number was intended to be
read as an imprecise quantity. No second number was mentioned.
And the third was to reference a number (a couple of years) which even if
read literally rather than figuratively is within an order of magnitude
of the original.
Even read as *different*, they're not "vastly" different (a vague
quantifier which surely means more than merely a single order of
magnitude: jumping from five to five billion would surely be a vast
difference, not five to fifty).
> I think we both get the idea - let's back out of this rabbit trail
> before we get lost, ok? :)
Translation:
"Yeah Steve, you're right, I was kinda a dick for pedantically telling
you off for imprecision in numbers even though I knew full well that no
greater precision was possible or desirable, but how 'bout you drop it and
leave me with the last word, hmmm?"
No worries Jim, I totally agree.
*wink*
--
Steven D'Aprano
"Ever since I learned about confirmation bias, I've been seeing
it everywhere." -- Jon Ronson
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