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Re: Reply to Ousterhout's reply (was Re: Ousterhout and Tcl ...)

To: scsh@martigny.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Reply to Ousterhout's reply (was Re: Ousterhout and Tcl ...)
From: Graham Matthews <graham.matthews@maths.anu.edu.au>
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 13:00:33 +1000
Organization: Department of Mathematics, ANU
Graham Matthews (graham.matthews@maths.anu.edu.au) wrote:
> || Ok thats fair enough, but for me it raises another question, a question
> || that goes to the heart of why people think JO's article is just
> || advertising hype. Why did JO chose to represent everything as a string?
> || Why not everything as a number. Why not everything as a list? The latter
Charles Lin wrote:
>     If one had to choose a single type for everything, a string is a
> pretty good choice.   Why not a number?  How would you represent a
> string with a number?   You can represent a number with a string.
> Just put quotes around it. 

Oh come on -- if you have a a finite alphabet then there is a bijection
between
the natural numbers and strings over that finite alphabet. For example
if you N
symbols in your alphabet, A ..., then AA is represented by N+1.

graham
-- 
                       I was gonna be your Romeo
                      You were gonna be my Juliet
                  These days you don't wait on Romeos
                    You wait on that welfare cheque

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