On 9/24/2011 4:57 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
Python says is that issubclass(Cat, Yamlafiable) will return True. The
*interpretation* of that fact is entirely up to you. If you want to
interpret it as meaning that cats are Yamlafiables, go right ahead. If you
want to interpret it as a technical result with no semantic meaning, that's
fine too. After all, just because "ram" in "programming" returns True
doesn't actually mean anything about male sheep and computing.
Today's comics had a strip in which girl A suggests to girl B that they
go to a disco to disco-ver someone interesting.
In fact, even in real life, the ancestor/descendant metaphor creaks. What
should we make of bacteria which exchange DNA with other species of
bacteria?
That the human concept of 'species' does not really apply to bacteria.
And similarly, that the CompSci concept of 'class' may also not always
fit what we want to model.
> Which is the ancestor and which is the descendant? How about
symbionts like lichen? What about when we splice genes from one species
into another? So even in real life, there are multiple inheritance and
mixins.
Good point.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
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