Python was designed (was Re: Multi-threading in Python vs Java)

[Mark Janssen]

> Objects in programming languages (or 'values' if one is more functional programming oriented) correspond to things in the world.

One of the things you're saying there is that "values correspond to
things in the world".  But you will not get agreement in computer
science on that anymore than saying "numbers correspond to things in
the world" -- they are abstractions that are not supposed to
correspond to things.  (Objects, OTOH, were intended to, so your
statement has mixed truthiness.)

> Types on the other hand correspond to our classifications and so are things in our minds.

That is not how a C programmer views it.  They have explicit
"typedef"s that make it a thing for the computer.

> So for the world 'to settle' on a single universal type system is about as nonsensical and self contradictory as you and I having the same thoughts.

Yes, well clearly we are not "having the same thoughts", yet the
purpose of the academic establishment is to pin down such terminology
and not have these sloppy understandings everywhere.  You dig?

> To see how completely nonsensical a classification system of a so-called alien culture is, please read:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_Emporium_of_Benevolent_Knowledge
>
> And then reflect that the passage is implying that CONVERSELY our natural/obvious/FACTual classifications would appear similarly nonsensical to them.
>
> The same in the world of programming languages:

No.  There is one world in which the computer is well-defined.  All
others are suspect.

> Here's an APL session
> $ ./apl
> a perfectly good (and for many of us old-timers a very beautiful) type system
> but completely incompatible with anything designed in the last 40 years!

Yeah, well 40 years ago they didn't have parsers.   The purpose of
having a field of computer science worthy of the name, is to advance
the science not let this riff-raff dominate the practice.

-- 
MarkJ
Tacoma, Washington