for / while else doesn't make sense

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 2:51 AM, Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet at bsb.me.uk> wrote:
> Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 12:29 AM, Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet at bsb.me.uk> wrote:
>>> Right, but this is to miss the point.  Let's say that 4000 years have
>>> defined 1/3 to be one third, but Python 3 (as do many programming
>>> languages) defines 1/3 to be something very very very very close to one
>>> third, and *that* idea is very very very very new!
>>
>> Have you ever written one third as 0.33333333 ?
>
> Not that I recall, but, obviously, I can't be sure.  I can't even tell
> without counting how many 3s there are there.  Why do you ask?
>
>> Because that's also
>> something very very close to one third.
>
> Yes it is, but I don't get what point you are making.

You asserted that representing one third as something almost, but not
exactly, one third was a new idea. It is not. Ever since ancient
times, approximations have been used. Python is no different from
anything else; the only reason it _looks_ different is that it's an
approximation in binary, converted to decimal for display.

ChrisA