On Wednesday 20 May 2015 14:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote: > Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info>: > >> There is a little magic elf hiding inside the computer, and when you >> type an expression like '2 + 3', little tiny hammers bang it out in >> Morse Code on the elf's head; in response, the elf calculates the >> answer on his teeny tiny abacus and passes it back to the interpreter. > > That would be a perfectly valid semantic explanation if it really > predicted the output.
Which it does. State any mathematical expression involving operators and operands supported by Python, and I can express it in Morse code, and tell you exactly what result the elf will calculate. Someone sufficiently killed with an abacus can probably even calculate it *using the same algorithms* that the elf will use. Being hit on the head by hammers is not compulsory. >> Since this explanation explains the observed behaviour, according to >> you it is equally valid as one involving, you know, actual facts. > > It doesn't explain the observed behavior. It doesn't differentiate > between correct and incorrect outcomes. Perhaps when I wrote "the elf calculates the answer" it was unclear that I meant the *correct* answer rather than some arbitrary value which is not actually the answer. I will try to be more clear in the future. -- Steve -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
