does anybody earn a living programming in python?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 09:17:28 -0400, Roy Smith wrote:

> In article 
> <pan.2006.09.27.13.11.34.185704 at REMOVE.THIS.cybersource.com.au>,
>  Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVE.THIS.cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 22:00:55 +1000, Anthony Baxter wrote:
>> 
>> > This seems to be a very, very silly original post. I know of plenty of
>> > people who make a living programming Python. It's been the vast
>> > majority of the programming (for money) I've done in the last ten
>> > years, and there's countless other people I know here in Melbourne in
>> > the same position.
>> 
>> Countless people? Are we talking aleph-zero people (countable infinity) or
>> one of the uncountable infinities?
> 
> Countless and uncountable are not the same thing.  The former simply means 
> you haven't bothered to count them yet, which as a basis for number theory, 
> sounds like it belongs in a Douglas Adams book.

You're thinking of "uncounted", which means "not counted yet". The
dictionary definition of countless is "too many to count" (Pocket Oxford),
which I suppose could be 11 for some people if they didn't take their
shoes and socks off. Mathematically, any finite integer is able to be
counted, so "countless" is equivalent to "infinite in number".

Of course, I suppose it is conceivable that there isn't actually an
infinite number of Python programmers living in Melbourne, and Anthony was
exaggerating just a tad. Maybe it's not actually infinite, just very, very
large. Graham's Number perhaps?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham's_number



-- 
Steven.