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[rusi]

On Saturday, June 22, 2013 7:34:18 AM UTC+5:30, MRAB wrote:
> Pure functional languages don't have mutables, or even variables, but
> then we're not talking about a pure functional language, we're talking
> about Python.

In which case neither do mathematicians.  Do we rewrite the last 1000 years of math history?

The incantation:
x = x+1
is something algorithmists (ie programmers) write without batting an eyelid.

Algebraically (ie for a mathematician) this is the specification of an impossibility.

Every programmer needs to have both these modes of thinking -- algebraic and algorithmic -- up his sleeve.

Ironically it was al Khwarizmi -- whose name became 'algorithm' -- who wrote al Gebr -- from which we get algebra ie its taken us a millenium to come full circle!!