Eelco writes: > > They recognize modular arithmetic but for some reason insist that > > there is no such _binary operation_. But as I said, I don't understand > > their concern. (Except the related concern about some programming > > languages, not Python, where the remainder does not behave well with > > respect to division.) > > They might not be willing to define it, but as soon as we programmers > do, well, we did. > > Having studied the contemporary philosophy of mathematics, their > concern is probably that in their minds, mathematics is whatever some > dead guy said it was, and they dont know of any dead guy ever talking > about a modulus operation, so therefore it 'does not exist'. > > Whatever you want to call the concept we are talking about, or whether > you care to talk about it at all, it is most certainly a binary > operation, since there are two arguments involved. There is no way > around that.
Yes, I think you nailed it. But I guess I'll still be confused the next time I meet one of them. Happens to me. :) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
