Re: Hints on recursion

"Geoffrey Summerhayes" <sumrnot@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> "Pascal Bourguignon" <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:87psoin26x.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> "matteo d'addio 81" <m_a_t_e_81@xxxxxxxx> writes:
>>
>>>
>>> in my opinion if you substitute '(g h i) to rest you'll get:
>>>
>>> (twice 'e '(e quote (g h i))) = (once 'e quote (g h i))
>>>
>>> or:
>>>
>>> (twice 'e '(e g h i)) = (once 'e g h i)
>>>
>>> Am I wrong?
>>
>> You're right. I'd substitute (g h i) to rest.
>>
>
> <Pascal's explanation elided>
>
> I can't believe I'm actually replying to this nonsense,
> but I've still got a little caffeine left in the system.
> If I say that you can find "hammer" in the dictionary,
> you can argue that there are no words in that book starting
> with a double quotation mark. If I say you can find hammer
> in the dictionary, you can say that the idea that all a
> carpenter needs is a book, because all his tools are in
> it, is a ridiculous idea.
>
> Or, dramatic pause, you can look at the context and assume
> the most rational idea, that "hammer" and hammer are, in
> both sentences, referring to a word located in the damn
> dictionary and get on with enjoying life instead of, I
> don't know, say ... losing sleep over one tiny little
> single quote mark in a NG post by avoiding the obvious.

You're right, but a newbie who never used the REPL, he hasn't the
context that would let him interpret correctly. What if you're
speaking to an ET who never saw a hammer, and never had to hit on
anything ever because they're telekinesists?

Actually, when you write hammer or "hammer", usually we don't know
because our natural language is primarily oral: babies learn it oraly
before they learn to read and write. So we have learned to interpret
sentences at the correct meta-level independently of any formal
notation, with the aid of the context. Unfortunately, here we're
speaking of a formal language, interpreted by a quite limited formal
system (READ EVAL PRINT LOOP), so this discussion is not entirely nonsense.



--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
In deep sleep hear sound,
Cat vomit hairball somewhere.
Will find in morning.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]
    ... greg wrote: ... E.g. they will likely expect a 2kg hammer ... But if the point of the question is to just point at ignorance of physics concepts among the general population to make people feel like jackasses, then that's not very hard to do. ... The bigger picture is that if the sole purpose is to shame people without physics knowledge, the fact that the questioner phrased the question poorly enough and had to know that the context would be misinterpreted -- so that, oops, the naive answer is actually _correct_ in context -- that he's the only person who should be ashamed. ...
    (comp.lang.python)
  • Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]
    ... Erik Max Francis wrote: ... context is posed to a generally educated laymen, the supposedly wrong answer that was given is actually _correct_. ... E.g. they will likely expect a 2kg hammer ...
    (comp.lang.python)