Beginner needs advice

[harrismh777]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:


      LOL

> I invite you to consider the difference between a legally dead person
> moments before being resuscitated by a paramedic,

    ( ... alive )

> versus a chicken that
> has just been beheaded and is still running around the yard,

    ( ... alive )

> versus a
> million-year-old fossilized bone that has turned to stone.

    ( ... mostly 'dead' )

> Who could
> possibly justify saying that all three are equally dead?

    LOL    ( the first two [ roflol ] are 'partly' alive... )

       (  the third is just mostly dead...  )


>
> Beware the tyranny of the discontinuous mind.
>

     Sic Semper Tyrannus !



> Compatibility is inherently continuous, a matter
> of degree.

    Compatible by degrees is incompatible. Just 'how' incompatible 
determines whether the factor(s) are utterly useless, or just difficult 
to negotiate.

(uh, oh,... me suspects another analogy fallacy coming up... )

> This is especially true when it comes to languages, both natural and
> programming.

     ( Yup...  analogy fallacy for Ænglisc speakers... )

> British English and American English are perhaps 99.5%
> compatible, but "table a motion" means completely opposite things in
> British and American English. (In Britain, it means to deal with it
> immediately; in the USA, it means to postpone it.) Should we conclude
> from this that British and American English are "different languages" and
> "completely incompatible"?

    We Americans have not spoken 'English' in well over two hundred 
years...   :)          roflol

    However, I guarantee that if I'm dumped unaided in Piccadilly I'll 
be able to hail a cab, pay my £12.00 and get myself to Liverpool Street 
Station, find the bathroom, and be on the correct train just in time for 
dinner, all without looking into the English dictionary.
    On the other hand (playing along with this analogy fallacy) if I 
dump a python newbie unaided in the middle of 2.5 and ask them to format 
a simple polytonic Greek unicode string and output it with print to 
stdout (redirected to a file) they will fail... maybe even if they have 
a dictionary !

>
> The differences between Python 2 and 3 are less than those between
> American and British English.

    absurd and unsubstantiated claim... quickly now call the bobbies, 
call the bobbies !!!

To describe them as "different languages",
> as if going from Python 2 to 3 was like translating English to Italian,
> is absurd.

    ... no, um, its more like migrating ye old Ænglisc...  (the Ænglisc 
of say, "Beowulf" ) to modern English....  still assuming the English 
analogy fallacy holds... which,... it doesn't...


Ever tried to read Beowulf in the original?  Ever tried to write Ænglisc ?






kind regards,
m harris