interactive help on the base object

[Mark Lawrence]

On 09/12/2013 10:12, Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 4:01 PM, Mark Janssen <dreamingforward at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Likewise, WITH A COMPUTER, there is a definite order which can't be
>> countermanded by simply having this artifice called "Object".  If you
>> FEE(L)s hadn't noticed (no longer using the insult "foo"s out of
>> respect for the sensativities of the brogrammers), this artifice has
>> just been *called on the floor* with this little innocent question
>> that fired up this discussion again (don't hate the messenger).
>> Again:  people entering the community are pointing out a problem --
>> that Object is both trying to be the BASE and the SUPERclass of all
>> objects.
>
> You're mixing two different terminologies.  Whereas "superclass"
> contrasts with "subclass" and connotes an imaginary spatial
> relationship, "base" contrasts with "derived" (not "top"), which
> pairing does not suggest any spatial relationship at all.  There is no
> inconsistency in that these two words happen to mean the same thing.
>
>>> Likewise it doesn't matter whether we draw class hierarchies from the top
>>> down or the bottom up or even sidewise:
>>
>> Have you caught it by now, friends:  IT MATTERS TO THE COMPUTER.
>
> No, I'm pretty sure the computer doesn't care one whit whether the
> inheritance hierarchy that I scribble on a random sheet of paper
> happens to be represented as top-down, bottom-up, left-right,
> right-left, center-out, ana-kata, or using any other conceivable
> spatial relationship that I may have omitted.  The computer only cares
> (inasmuch as I'm willing to personify it) about the actual *code* that
> I feed into it.  How the programmer abstracts or visualizes that code
> is irrelevant.
>

MASCOT is the One True Way 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_Approach_to_Software_Construction_Operation_and_Test

-- 
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask 
what you can do for our language.

Mark Lawrence