Apologies in advance... the following is going to contain mathematical jargon and pedantry. Run now while you still can *wink*
On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 12:56:55AM -0700, Andrew Barnert wrote: > >>> On Mar 23, 2020, at 19:52, Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> wrote: > >> On Mon, Mar 23, 2020 at 06:03:06PM -0700, Andrew Barnert wrote: > >> The existing methods are named issubset and issuperset (and > >> isdisjoint, which doesn’t have an operator near-equivalent). Given > >> that, would you still want equals instead of isequal or something? > > > > Oops! I mean, aha, you passed my test to see if you were paying > > attention, well done! > > > > *wink* > > > > I would be satisfied by "isequal", if the method were needed. > > > > > >> So, I’d rather have an uglier, more explicit, and more obviously > >> specific-to-set name like iscoextensive. Sure, not everyone will know > >> what “coextensive” means > > > > That's an unnecessary use of jargon > > As far as I’m aware (and your MathWorld search bears this out), > “coextensive” isn’t mathematical jargon. No, it's definitely mathematical jargon, but *really* specialised. As far as I can tell, it's only used by people working on the foundations of logic and set theory. I haven't come across it elsewhere. For example: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=wEa9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA284&lpg=PA284&dq=math+coextensive+set+difference+with+equality&source=bl&ots=y-jmrSTxC8&sig=ACfU3U18oCjeXSfwwqML1zuVWwbSJdeZ2Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjqzfGBhbLoAhUOzDgGHfqSAbIQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=math%20coextensive%20set%20difference%20with%20equality&f=false "Introduction To Discrete Mathematics Via Logic And Proof" by Calvin Jongsma, on pages 283-4, it says: First-Order Logic already has a fixed, standard notation of identity governed by rules of inference. S = T logically implies (∀x)(x∈S ↔ x∈T) [...] Thus identical sets must contain exactly the same elements. However we can't turn this claim around and say that sets having the same elements are identical -- *set equality for coextensive sets doesn't follow from logic alone.* We'll therefore postulate this as an axiom, using the formal notation of FOL. Axiom 5.3.1: Axiom of Extensionality ∀x(x∈S ↔ x∈T) → S = T The crierion for equal sets (see Definition 4.1.1 follows immediately: Proposition 5.3.1: Equal Sets S = T ↔ ∀x(x∈S ↔ x∈T) Apologies to everyone who got lost reading that :-) In the above quote, "identity" should be read as "equality". The emphasised clause "set equality for coextensive sets..." is in the original. The upside down A ∀ means "for all", the rounded E ∈ means "element of". So translated into English, what the author is saying is that he has a concept of two sets being equal, S = T. He has another concept of two sets being coextensive, namely, that for each element in S, it is also in T, and vice versa. He then says that if two sets are identical (equal), then logically they must also be coextensive, but to go the other way (coextensive implies equality) we have to make it part of the definition. That's a long-winded, pedantic and precise way of saying that two sets are equal if, and only if, they have precisely the same elements as each other, by definition. > I chose it because of its ordinary (if not super-common) English > meaning. Oh. Well, you outsmarted me, or perhaps outdumbed me *smiles* because it definitely is a term from mathematics, whether you knew it or not. I thought that you were referring to the mathematical usage. As far as the non-mathematical meaning: being of equal extent or scope or duration; having the same spatial limits or boundaries; I think we would be justified as reading `A.iscoextensive(B)` in one of two ways: len(A) == len(B) (min(A), max(A)) == (min(B), max(B)) but not necessarily as equal. Why not equal? Consider somebody who started a project on the day of the Olypics Opening Ceremony, and finished the project on the day of the Closing Ceremony. We can say that the project and the Olympics were coextensive, but we can't necessarily say that they were equal or the same thing, or that the project was the Olympics. [...] > Sure, but in math, just as in Python, a set is never equal to a list > (with a tiny foundations asterisk that isn’t relevant, but I’ll > mention it below). Well, yes and no. In Python, just as in mathematics, a set is never a superset or subset of a list either, and yet in Python we have a set method which quite happily says that a set can be a superset or subset (or equal to) a list: {1, 2}.issubset([2, 1]) # Returns True We understand that, unlike the operators `<` and `<=`, the issubset method is happy to (conceptually) coerce the list into a set. > So when mathematicians want to say a set is equal to a list… well, > they just don’t say that, because it isn’t true, and usually isn’t > even a meaningful question in the first place. Don't you think that there is a sense in which the Natural numbers ℕ {0, 1, 2, 3, ...} and the sequence (0, 1, 2, 3, ...) are "the same thing"? We even talk about ℕ having successor and predecessor functions, which implies a natural order to the set. > > The foundations of mathematics is one of those things which are > > extremely over-represented on the Internet > > Well, you’re the only one who brought up foundations here, and in the > same email where you’re railing against people talking about > foundations on the internet, so I’m not sure what the point is. Because I genuinely thought you intended to refer to the mathematical jargon, I didn't imagine you just got lucky. > My guess is that you saw Greg, Marc-Andre, etc. talking about sets in > mathematics and naturally thought “oh no, here comes irrelevant > mathematical logic”, *blink* Um, are you confusing me with someone else? Is there something I've said that leads you to the conclusion that I think that being mathematical and logical is irrelevant? > but there isn’t any; the reason sets came up is > that we’re talking about set operations on Python set objects, and > it’s pretty hard to talk about what issubset means/should mean without > talking about sets. Oh well I'm glad you set me straight. -- Steven _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ Message archived at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/OD3MF6HI2AVVB4B76HBFDYITN2HTUUAZ/ Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
