Steven D'Aprano <ste...@remove.this.cybersource.com.au> wrote: > I don't think so. Variables in algebra are quite different from variables > in programming languages. Contrast the statement: > > x = x+1 > > as a programming expression and an algebraic equation. As a programming > expression, it means "increment x by one". But as an algebraic > expression, it means "x is some value such that it is equal to one more > than itself", and there is no solution to such an equation.
Surely there is. The solution is: 1 = 0 (and hence x is an -- no, /the/ -- element of the trivial ring). > > and how several generations of computer languages, not to mention > > the actual machine language those generated, behaved, before the current > > crop. > > Sure. And? Actally, this is true only for /very/ small values of `several'. There was FORTRAN in 1957, with what you're calling the `named bins' model, and I call assignment-is-copying, and Lisp in 1958, with the assignment- is-pointer-diddling model. -- [mdw] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list