Practice question

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 06 Oct 2014 10:05:40 -0700, Rustom Mody wrote:

> On Monday, October 6, 2014 10:22:27 PM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 3:23 AM, Rustom Mody wrote:
>> > Consider the sequence:
>> > 1. Drives on the wrong side of the road 2. Has no clue that there's
>> > such a concept as 'wrong side of road' 3. Teaches people to drive
>> > without conveying anything about 'wrong side of road' Hopefully you
>> > will agree that 1 < 2 < 3?? My gripe is with 3
> 
>> No, I don't agree.
> 
> Interesting
> 
> So you dont agree with: "1<2<3" ?

I can't speak for Chris, by my answer is neither Yes nor No, but Mu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_%28negative%29#In_popular_culture


I don't understand what semantics you are giving the < symbol. It's not 
"less than", since statements 1, 2 and 3 above don't have a total order 
or even a partial order. What does it mean to say that "Drives on the 
wrong side of the road" is less than "Teaches people to drive without 
conveying anything about 'wrong side of road'"? Less than in what sense? 
Alphabetical order? Less dangerous? Less competent? Less annoying? Less 
expensive?

So, no, I don't agree. Nor do I disagree.

I have fewer issues with your conclusion and analogy than I do with the 
basic premise that there is a connection between Seymore's problem here 
and the use, or non-use, of print in the interactive interpreter. I don't 
see how replacing interactive use and/or the use of print with functions 
containing return statements would help Seymore.



> Or with "My gripe is 3"  ?
> 
> The second would be quite bizarre:

If it's bizarre, why do you consider that Chris may mean that? The 
reasonable thing would be to reject it from contention.


> "I have a headache..."
> 
> "Sorry. But I dont agree with that"


"I don't agree that you have a headache. You're obviously lying, acting, 
delusional, an insentient robot programmed to repeat the words 'I have a 
headache', a zombie (not the brain eating kind, the philosophical kind), 
a sophisticated bot (but not sophisticated enough to pass the Turing 
test), or otherwise faking it."

I'm just sayin'...



-- 
Steven