Python for philosophers

[Ned Batchelder]

On 5/11/2013 4:03 PM, Citizen Kant wrote:
> Hi,
> this could be seen as an extravagant subject but that is not my 
> original purpose. I still don't know if I want to become a programmer 
> or not. At this moment I'm just inspecting the environment. I'm making 
> my way to Python (and OOP in general) from a philosophical perspective 
> or point of view and try to set the more global definition of Python's 
> core as an "entity". In order to do that, and following Wittgenstein's 
> indication about that the true meaning of words doesn't reside on 
> dictionaries but in the use that we make of them, the starting 
> question I make to myself about Python is: which is the single and 
> most basic use of Python as the entity it is? I mean, beside 
> programming, what's the single and most basic result one can expect 
> from "interacting" with it directly (interactive mode)? I roughly came 
> to the idea that Python could be considered as an *economic mirror for 
> data*, one that mainly *mirrors* the data the programmer types on its 
> black surface, not exactly as the programmer originally typed it, but 
> expressed in the most economic way possible. That's to say, for 
> example, if one types >>>1+1 Python reflects >>>2. When data appears 
> between apostrophes, then the mirror reflects, again, the same but 
> expressed in the most economic way possible (that's to say without the 
> apostrophes).
>
> So, would it be legal (true) to define Python's core as an entity that 
> mirrors whatever data one presents to it (or feed it with) showing 
> back the most shortened expression of that data?
>
> Don't get me wrong. I can see the big picture and the amazing things 
> that programmers write on Python, it's just that my question points to 
> the lowest level of it's existence.
>
> Thanks a lot for your time.
>
>

Python is straightforward: you write instructions, and it executes 
them.  At its core, that's all it does.  Why does the core have to be 
any different than that?

--Ned.
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