69 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
69 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
From: dalke at bioreason.com (Andrew Dalke)
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Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 18:51:57 -0600
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Subject: converting perl to python - simple questions.
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References: <000201be929f$636d10a0$5fa02299@tim>
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Message-ID: <3728FEAD.CF650A4@bioreason.com>
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Content-Length: 2216
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X-UID: 582
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Uncle Tim said:
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> Here's a topic for civil debate: Resolved: returning different stuff
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> depending on whether an expression is in array or scalar context is no
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> worse than killing those of your classmates wearing shirts with sports
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> insignia <wink>.
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Using the formalism of symbolic algebra we start with the universe
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of concepts denoted U. We choose two items, A,B which are elements
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of U such that:
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A = "returning different stuff depending on whether an expression is
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in array or scalar context"
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and
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B = "killing those of your classmates wearing shirts with sports
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insignia"
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It is obvious that there exists some metric M which induces an
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ordering in U such that if X,Y are elements of U then the statement
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"X is worse than Y" is either correct or incorrect. We denote "X
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is worse than Y" by the expressions "X > Y" or "Y < X". The other
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standard expression for equality and inequality apply as normal,
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and it should be observed that this is a partial ordering as there
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can be some X,Y in U where X < Y and X > Y are both incorrect (so
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X == Y) using M but X is not identical to Y in U.
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We can derive such a metric M through newscasts and other forms of
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media. From this it is a relatively trivial matter to conclude that
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A < B
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given M(media) on U. Hence it is seen that it is not true that B >= A
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and so the statement proposed by <tim_one at email.msn.com> in his
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paper <000201be929f$636d10a0$5fa02299 at tim>.
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"returning different stuff depending on whether an expression is
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in array or scalar context is no worse than killing those of your
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classmates wearing shirts with sports insignia"
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is a correct one, and that we can make the even stronger assertion
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"returning different stuff depending on whether an expression is
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in array or scalar context is less worse than killing those of
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your classmates wearing shirts with sports insignia"
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as the equivalence case has been shown to be false for the given
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M(media). It remains to be seen if there exists some M for which
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these statements are incorrect.
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(Whew - got that math lingo coursing through my system now, and
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hence we see that I should halt before I further such discussions :)
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Andrew
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dalke at acm.org
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