Variables

[Kirk Job Sluder]

Richard Blackwood <richardblackwood at cloudthunder.com> writes:

> Bengt Richter wrote:
> 
> >Tell him in Python foo is a member of one set and 5 is a member of another,
> >and foo = 5 expresses the step of putting them into correspondence
> >to define a mapping, not declaring them equal.
> >
> Could I honestly argue this to him? From what basis do I argue that it
> is not an equation? In any event, he would likely (passionately)
> disagree considering his notion that programming is an off-shoot of
> math and thus at the fundamental level has identical concepts and
> rules. Believe it or not, he used to be a programmer. Back in the day
> (while I was getting my PhD in philosophy), he was a employed
> programmer using Cobol, Fortran, and other languages like that. Did
> his seemingly peculiar definition of variable exist at that time?

Because, this is shorthand that operates at quite a bit of a higher
level than the mathematical roots of a programming language.  Here is a
peek of what is going in when foo = 5 is evaluated.

create an anonymous int object
set the value of that object to 5 
create a symbol foo 
bind the location the anonymous object to symbol foo






> 
> >Even in math notation, ISTM important to distinguish between
> >a finger and what it may for the moment be pointing at.
> >
> >Regards,
> >Bengt Richter
> >
> 

-- 
Kirk Job-Sluder
"The square-jawed homunculi of Tommy Hilfinger ads make every day an
existential holocaust."  --Scary Go Round