[Python-Dev] Re: linear algebra

[Paul Prescod]

"Eric S. Raymond" wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
> 
> Overloading otherwise undefined special method names for operators is
> a well-understood way to add functionality to classes.  Lrt's use it.

I don't know why you think that this is well-understood. Nevertheless,
let's propose we add some fixed list of operators:

.+
.*
./
.\

Would you propose that:

"abc" 	.+ "c"			=> "abc".find( "c")
"def" 	.* ".e." 			=> re.match( "def", ".e." )
" " 	/ ["a","b","c","d","e"] 	=> " ".join( [...] )
"a b c"	.\ " " 		=> "a b c d e".split( " " )

To me, these bindings look like the kind of things I'd expect in P3rL,
because the relationship between the syntax and the behavior is mostly
random. In other words, you can't just invent a bunch of operators and
THEN figure out how they are going to be used in various domains. You
need to invent the operators *for* the domains.

-- 
 Paul Prescod - Not encumbered by corporate consensus
It's difficult to extract sense from strings, but they're the only
communication coin we can count on. 
	- http://www.cs.yale.edu/~perlis-alan/quotes.html