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Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 05:03:59 +1000
Subject: Re: how to get the ordinal number in list
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
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On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 4:26 AM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Its when we have variables that are assigned in multiple places that
> we start seeing mathematical abominations like
> x = x+1

That's an abomination to you because it breaks your mathematical
model. It's fine to a computer, which has a sense of time. And it even
can be strictly true. Consider:

>>> x = 2.0**53
>>> x = x + 1
>>> x == x + 1
True

x is clearly not infinity, yet it's equal to itself plus one. If
you're going to try to pretend that maths and computers are exactly
the same, you have a LOT of problems to deal with.

In computing, assignment and reassignment aren't at all problematic,
and neither is printing to the console, so please stop telling people
off for using them.

ChrisA