Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > Variations in idiom and spelling are a good thing. They open our minds to > new possibilities, remind us that we aren't all the same, and keep life > fresh. I remember the first time I realised that when Indians talk about "a > code" they aren't using "wrong English", they are using a regional > variation. In British and American English, "code" in the programming > sense[2] is a mass or uncountable noun, like air[3], milk, music and > housework.
I can assure you that in a veterinary sence, Yersey cows will produce a milk with higher fat content. In a lingustic sence the "a" is not a count -- that would be the word "one" --, it is the indefinite article. Here is the difference: The Enigma machine produced a code that only Alan Turing could break. If I say the Enigma machine produced one code that only Alan Turing could break, it means all the other codes could be broken by someone else. What if I say "this file contains a long Fortran code"? Or what if I say "this file contains one long Fortran code"? There is a subtile difference in meaning here. Sturla -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
