>> It's like this. No matter how you cut it, you're going to get back to >> the computers where you load instructions with switches. At that point, >> I'll be very much looking in anticipation to your binary-digit lexer. > > Why stop there? If you go back far enough, you've got Babbage with his > Analytical Engine and his laboriously hand-cast analog gears.
And there you bring up the heart of it: the confusion in computer science. thank you. Babbage's differential engine is not doing *computation* , it is doing *physics*. We must draw a line somewhere, because the digital realm in the machine is so entirely separate from the physics (and even the physical hardware), that I could make a whole other universe that does not conform to it. It is a whole other ModelOfComputation. Q.E.D. (Who else is going to have to eat a floppy disk here?) > Relevant: > > http://www.xkcd.com/451/ *winks*. BTW, all this regarding "models of computation" and such is relevant to the discussion only because of one thing: I like python. I will leave that vague response for a later exercise after I get an invite from a University (MIT?) to head their Computer Engineering department. Cheers, Mark -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
