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How about adding rational fraction to Python?

Dan Bishop danb_83 at yahoo.com
Fri Feb 29 21:36:29 EST 2008 
On Feb 29, 12:55 am, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfr... at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:39:51 -0000, Steven D'Aprano
> <st... at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> declaimed the following in
> comp.lang.python:
>
> > By that logic, we should see this:
>
> > >>> len("a string")
> > '8'
>
>         Why? len() is a function that /counts/ the elements of the argument
> -- said count remains in integral value (I presume we don't have a 1.5
> character long string)

The relevant point is that len() is a function that returns a
DIFFERENT type than its argument, and nobody ever complains about is.

> > And rightly rejected by many other programming languages, including
> > modern Python, not to mention calculators, real mathematics and common
> > sense.
>
>         I know of no calculator that has "integers" for normal math -- and
> the HP50 even emphasizes this by putting a decimal point into "integer"
> quantities. Heck -- most calculators work in BCD floats. Most merely
> suppress the decimal point if the trailing digits are all 0s

My TI-89 treats them differently: 1.0/2.0 is 0.5, while 1/2 is the
symbolic expression 1/2.
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