documentation error

[Terry Hancock]

On Sunday 04 September 2005 01:30 pm, Reinhold Birkenfeld wrote:
> tiissa wrote:
> > bill wrote:
> >>>From 3.2 in the Reference Manual "The Standard Type Hierarchy":
> >> 
> >> "Integers
> >>     These represent elements from the mathematical set of whole
> >> numbers."
> >> 
> >> The generally recognized definition of a 'whole number' is zero and the
> >> positive integers.
> > 
> > This term is ambiguous as it seems to be used for both natural numbers 
> > and signed numbers [1].

You realize, of course, that "natural numbers" don't include zero. ;-)

This is a pretty serious nitpick, isn't it?  "Integers" is a well defined
mathematical concept, as well as a pretty well defined (but not coincident)
computer science concept.  It's probably worth mentioning that Python uses
the *mathematical* definition of "integer" here -- or more precisely that
Python "long integers" do, while regular "integers" are what are known as
"long integers" in C.

Okay.  I guess that *is* pretty confusing.

I think the manual is not so far off since "whole number" makes English
sense, if not mathematical.  Certainly, if I were explaining this to my
kids I would say "whole" and not "integer" (I at least know they know what
"whole" means).

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks  http://www.anansispaceworks.com