Old Man Yells At Cloud

[Ben Bacarisse]

Steve D'Aprano <steve+python at pearwood.info> writes:
<snip>
> To answer your question, what do I mean by int/int being undefined, I'd have to
> dig into areas of maths that either weren't taught in the undergrad courses I
> did, or that I've long since forgotten about. Something
> about... fields?
<snip>
> This is a pretty specialised area of maths. You won't learn anything
> about it in high school. And possibly not undergrad maths degrees. I
> seem to vaguely recall just barely touching on groups, but not rings
> or fields.

When you said before that you thought that undefined division was rather
obscure I was going to mention that it's the basic difference between a
ring and a field; the intent being that you'd go "oh, yes, of course
it's not obscure at all".  I'm glad I didn't now, because you would not
have seen it as the simple notion I expected!

Teaching rings and fields is (or at least was 30 or so years ago) 1st
year undergraduate maths here in the UK.  Maybe it's changed.

BTW, I don't think this has anything to do with what 1/3 should be in
Python.  Python as no interest in rings and fields -- it's purely a
pragmatic decision.

-- 
Ben.