A few questiosn about encoding

[Antoon Pardon]

Op 14-06-13 10:37, Nick the Gr33k schreef:
> On 14/6/2013 11:22 πμ, Antoon Pardon wrote:
>
>>> Python prints numbers:
>> No it doesn't, numbers are abstract concepts that can be represented in
>> various notations, these notations are strings. Those notaional strings
>> end up being printed. As I said before we are so used in using the
>> decimal notation that we often use the notation and the number
>> interchangebly
>> without a problem. But when we are working with multiple notations that
>> can become confusing and we should be careful to seperate numbers
>> from their
>> representaions/notations.
>
> How do we separate a number then from its represenation-natation?
What do you mean? Internally there is no representation linked
to the number, so there is nothing to be seperated. Only when
a number needs to be printed, is a representation for that
number built and displayed.


> What is a notation anywat? is it a way of displayment? but that would
> be a represeantion then....
Yes a notation is a representation. However "represenation" is also
a bit of python jargon that has a specific meaning. So in order to
not confuse with multiple possible meanings for "representation" I
chose to use "notation"


>> There are no decimal integers. There is only a decimal notation of
>> the number.
>> Decimal, octal etc are not characteristics of the numbers themselves.
>
>
> So everything we see like:
>
> 16474
> nikos
> abc123
>
> everything is a string and nothing is a number? not even number 1?
There is a difference between "everything we see" as you
write earlier and just plain "eveything" as you write
later. Python works with numbers, but at the moment
it has to display such a number it has to produce something
that is printable. So it will build a string that can be
used as a notation for that number, a numeral. And that
is what will be displayed.

-- 
Antoon.