On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 08:50:27 +0100, Alex Martelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ooops -- sorry; I wouldn't have imagined Brazilian hits would swamp the > google hits to that extent, mostly qualifying post-grad courses and the > like... seems to be an idiom there for that.
'Lato sensu' is used to indicate short post-graduate level courses that don't give one any recognized degree such as 'MSc', or 'master'. It's pretty much like a specialization course on some specific area, usually offered by small private universities. It's like a fever around here - everyone does just to add something to the resume - and has spawned a entire branch in the educational industry (and yeah, 'industry' is the best word for it). Some schools refer to traditional post graduate courses as 'stricto sensu'. I don't have the slightest idea about where they did get this naming from. It's also amazing how many hits you'll get for the wrong spelling: 'latu sensu' & 'strictu sensu', mostly from Brazil, and also from some spanish-speaking countries. > Also, a reflection: taxonomy, the classification of things (living > beings, rocks, legal precedents, ...) into categories, is a discipline > with many, many centuries of experience behind it. I think it is > telling that taxonomists found out they require _two_ kinds of > ``inheritance'' to do their job (no doubt there are all kind of > _nuances_, but specialized technical wording exists for two kinds: > "strict-sense" and "broad-sense")... they need to be able to assert > that "A is a B _broadly speaking_" (or specifically "_strictly > speaking_") so often that they evolved specific terminology. Let's > hope it doesn't take OOP many centuries to accept that both "stricto > sensu inheritance" (Liskovianly-correct) AND "lato sensu inheritance" > are needed to do _our_ jobs!-) Good point! -- Carlos Ribeiro Consultoria em Projetos blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com