On Thu, 19 May 2011 23:21:30 +0200, Rikishi42 <skunkwo...@rikishi42.net> wrote: : On 2011-05-18, Hans Georg Schaathun <h...@schaathun.net> wrote: : > Now Mac OS X has maintained the folder concept of older mac generations, : > and Windows has cloned it. They do not want the user to understand : > recursive data structures, and therefore, naturally, avoid the word. : : You imply they want to keep their users ignorant of these structures, as if : to keep something valuable from them. Wouldn't it be more honest, more to : the point and much simpler to state they don't NEED the user to understand : recursive - or indeed any other - data structures? And that the user doesn't : NEED to understand or know about them, just to use them?
Admittedly, my wording had unintended implictions. Mac OS X /targets/ users who do not need to understand the underlying structure. However, the system also has users who do. : After all they are users. They use their system for fun, learning or work. : Even a very competent or advanced use of a tool (computer, car, mobile phone, : fridge, TV, radio, toilet) in no way implies an understanding of it's inner : workings. Nor the need, nor the desire. For a general purpose computer, that is simply not true in general. : PS: Isn't this thread much ado about nothing? :-) Most threads are. : It starts with the misconception (or should I say confusion?) between : performing a recursive job and using a recursive tool to do it. And then it : blazes off in these huge discusions about semantics to define a definition : of an abstraction of a alleady theoretical problem. And explaining the source of the misconception and the varying use would be irrelevant? : And PPS: the P(P)S's don't specifically refer to your posting. Thanks :-) -- :-- Hans Georg -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
