Conditional operator in Python?

[Tim Peters]

[Tim]
> hard-to-believe-that-semantically-significant-leading-zeroes-
>     ever-seemed-like-"a-good-idea"-to-anyone-ly y'rs  - tim

[Andrew Dalke]
> I do remember a letter to the editor in CACM

You shouldn't read that.  CACM has become the National Enquirer of
comp.lang.python wannabes.

> a few years ago

Ah, OK -- nevermind.  Just be sure you don't do it again.

> complaining about all the CS oriented computer science languages
> which didn't have a very useful feature in COBOL - a data type
> which understood that leading zeros are important for identifier
> numbers.  Eg, 04/03/01 as a date or 001-453-23264 as a part number.

Hmm.  04/03/01 sure looks like 4/3 to me!  What's the matter with strings?
They don't automagically have a "field" concept, or automagically verify that
assignments to fields contain data of the proper form, that's what.  But it's
easy enough to write a Python factory function to produce classes with those
abilities, given a format description string (call it, oh, "picture").

OTOH, trailing zeroes can be useful in real-world arithmetic, and the REXX
language defines (e.g.) 4.73 - 1.03 to be 3.70, not 3.7, and way not
3.7000000000000002.  I'm going to inflict that on Python someday.

> But that's neither here nor there, and since the thread
> in CACM went nowhere over several months of agumentative
> debate, perhaps I shouldn't have brought it up here.

Na, we routinely settle debates in one arrogant msg here that the trade rags
can't resolve in a decade.  Just another part of c.l.py's job.

> So, umm, what do you think of Riemann-Stiljes integration
> as it pertains to mark&sweep garbage collection of boxed
> integers?

If you view time as the horizontal axis and bytes of boxed integers reclaimed
per instant as the vertical, the area under "the curve" is the cumulative
boxed-byte-seconds (BBS) reclaimed.  The connection to R-S integration is
thus immediate, as "the curve" is really a discontinuous step function.

> How does that compare to Knuth's view?

Uncle Don and I have never disagreed on this point!  Don't go looking to stir
up trouble, Andrew.  If you must, join me in complaining about his C coding
style.  Like:

  t=TT-1; while (t) {
    for (j=KK-1;j>0;j--) ul[j+j]=ul[j],u[j+j]=u[j];     /* "square" */
    for (j=KK+KK-2;j>KK-LL;j-=2)
        ul[KK+KK-1-j]=0.0,u[KK+KK-1-j]=u[j]-ul[j];
    for (j=KK+KK-2;j>=KK;j--) if(ul[j]) {
      ul[j-(KK-LL)]=ulp-ul[j-(KK-LL)],
        u[j-(KK-LL)]=mod_sum(u[j-(KK-LL)],u[j]);
      ul[j-KK]=ulp-ul[j-KK],u[j-KK]=mod_sum(u[j-KK],u[j]);
    }
    if (is_odd(s)) {                             /* "multiply by z" */
      for (j=KK;j>0;j--)  ul[j]=ul[j-1],u[j]=u[j-1];
      ul[0]=ul[KK],u[0]=u[KK];       /* shift the buffer cyclically */
      if (ul[KK]) ul[LL]=ulp-ul[LL],u[LL]=mod_sum(u[LL],u[KK]);
    }
    if (s) s>>=1; else t--;
  }
  for (j=0;j<LL;j++) ran_u[j+KK-LL]=u[j];
  for (;j<KK;j++) ran_u[j-LL]=u[j];

taken from an especially impenetrable section of

    http://www-cs-staff.stanford.edu/~uno/programs/rng-double.c

Time to rewrite the TAoCP series in Python, yes?

> And what if the cosmological constant is positive?

It appears that Perl 6 is determined to test that empirically.

> (Phew - swerved that conversation just in time!)

failing-to-see-the-connection-to-transfinite-cardinals-ly y'rs  - tim