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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 15 2012 @ 11:25 AM EDT |
Wrong. Not all strings are symbols. In this case it is data. All symbols are
strings (and yes it can be the string "01") but <b>do not
directly convey a location</b> and thus require a resolution step.
"01" as a number does convey a location and thus do not require a
resolution step. Therefore, "01" as a number is not a symbolic
reference. This is why Dr. Mitchell took great pains to expunge "numeric
reference" in his second report and as a result, appeared not so
expert-like when he had to explain the discrepancy.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Tyro on Tuesday, May 15 2012 @ 06:13 PM EDT |
FWIW, a meaningless computer generated number CAN be a symbol. This doesn't
mean that it always is. Maybe...
I'm having trouble thinking of what use a meaningless number would be. If it's
a random number, then it's a *random* number, and not meaningless. If it's a
sequence number, then again it isn't meaningless. So this limits my examples
seriously. I can't think of *any* use for a meaningless number.
OTOH, I consider my use of Id#s to access records to be a symbolic use. I'm not
using them to identify the sequence of insertions into the file, not if any
deletions have happened. But I *am* using them as a unique access key. They
also track the order of insertions, though that fact isn't being used. I could
convert them all to strings and stick "id#=" at their front, and
they'd do the same job, only less efficiently.
So I assert that there's no inherent distinction between numbers and symbols.
And that all programming is mathematics. (I'm sure that's related here
somehow.)[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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