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Re: Error Testing

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On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 9:46 AM, Ned Deily <nad@acm.org> wrote:
> In article
> <CAPTjJmqRRxSx0rhU0bShQHBAwYm6_NWb6eX3hKetjwMDADQQxg@mail.gmail.com>,
>  Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Pascal tried to create a new operator, := to be read "becomes", to
>> deal with the whole equality-vs-assignment issue.
>
> Um, Pascal was just following the lead of ALGOL 60, roughly a decade earlier.

Sorry, the word "create" was poorly chosen. Would "deploy" be better?
I'm aware there's a family; what I'm trying to say is that, in Pascal
(I prefer to use a better-known language for discussion, where
possible), there's a new operator instead of =.

Anyway, my point is that it doesn't really help much. Imperative code
is temporal (maybe functional or declarative code could be closer to
maths, but we're talking Python here, which is imperative), where
mathematical truth is timeless. If a² + b² = c² now, then it still
will be true tomorrow. In programming, that's far from guaranteed
(though compilers will often optimize if they know there's a section
of code where the three won't change). You have to get your head
around that, whether you're doing assignment or comparison, and using
a different symbol to represent them is doing yourself as much of a
disservice as avoiding + for addition of floats to emphasize that they
don't always work like real numbers.

ChrisA

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Error Testing Scott Novinger <scnovinger@gmail.com> - 2013-10-19 05:23 -0700
  Re: Error Testing Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-10-19 13:37 +0100
    Re: Error Testing Scott Novinger <scnovinger@gmail.com> - 2013-10-19 06:34 -0700
      Re: Error Testing Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-10-20 00:42 +1100
      Re: Error Testing rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-10-19 09:22 -0700
        Re: Error Testing Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-10-20 09:28 +1100
        Re: Error Testing Ned Deily <nad@acm.org> - 2013-10-19 15:46 -0700
        Re: Error Testing Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-10-20 10:02 +1100
        Re: Error Testing Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2013-10-20 12:18 -0400
  Re: Error Testing Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2013-10-19 08:44 -0400
    Re: Error Testing Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2013-10-19 08:57 -0400
      Re: Error Testing Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-10-20 00:04 +1100
      Re: Error Testing Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2013-10-19 09:07 -0400
        Re: Error Testing Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2013-10-19 09:09 -0400
      Re: Error Testing Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-10-19 14:19 +0100
  Re: Error Testing Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-10-20 00:01 +1100
  Re: Error Testing David Robinow <drobinow@gmail.com> - 2013-10-19 14:08 -0400
  Re: Error Testing Tim Chase <tim@thechases.com> - 2013-10-19 13:31 -0500
  Re: Error Testing Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-10-19 15:50 -0400
  What's wrong with Windows Command Prompt (was Re: Error Testing) Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-10-19 16:35 -0400
  Re: What's wrong with Windows Command Prompt (was Re: Error Testing) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-10-20 09:15 +1100
  Re: Error Testing Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-10-20 09:20 +1100
  Re: What's wrong with Windows Command Prompt (was Re: Error Testing) David Robinow <drobinow@gmail.com> - 2013-10-21 15:55 -0400
  Re: What's wrong with Windows Command Prompt (was Re: Error Testing) Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2013-10-21 15:29 -0500

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