What is the semantics meaning of 'object'?

[Mark Janssen]

>> Combining integers with sets I can make
>> a Rational class and have infinite-precision arithmetic, for example.
>
> Combining two integers lets you make a Rational.

Ah, but what is going to group them together?  You see you've already
gotten seduced.  Python already uses a set to group them together --
it's called a Dict and it's in every Class object.

> Python integers are
> already infinite-precision. Or are you actually talking of using
> "machine words" and sets as your fundamental?

Probably.  It depends on where we need the flexibility of the
abstraction and where the code is written.

>  Also, you need an
> ordered set - is the set {5,3} greater or less than the set {2} when
> you interpret them as rationals?

The ordering (and hence the interpretation) is done WITHIN the Class
(i.e. the SET as I say above).

> One must assume, I suppose, that any
> one-element set represents the integer 1, because any number divided
> by itself is 1.

Ah, very good, observation.  But that must remain an improper question.  ;^)

>> That's a lot of power derived simply from using generic data
>> structures, not some panzy generic meta-Object that doesn't do
>> anything but tie people to an implicit type-theology.
>
> Sure. And if you want assembly language, you know where to find it.

Well you've been spoiled by all the work that came before you.  The
issue now is not to go "back to the machine" so much as to tear down
and build up again from raw materials, objects of more and more
complexity where very complex "meta-objects" upon meta-objects can be
built until the "whole of human knowledge can be contained".

Did you ever hear of the Glass Bead Game?
-- 
MarkJ
Tacoma, Washington