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Re: Re: problem with Pick

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg78492] Re: [mg78409] Re: problem with Pick
  • From: DrMajorBob <drmajorbob at bigfoot.com>
  • Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 05:24:32 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <acbec1a40706230431p4f1db9a9i4320680dda027396@mail.gmail.com> <200707010731.DAA01680@smc.vnet.net> <3793885.1183353014400.JavaMail.root@m35>
  • Reply-to: drmajorbob at bigfoot.com

Yeah, yeah, I know... the "2nd-order" explanation talks about  
list[[i1,12,...]], and Sequence[] is a (degenerate) example of i1,i2,...,  
so...

Right. That's totally obvious.

At least Andrzej (unlike Oyvind) told Chris how to avoid the top-level  
match.

Bobby

On Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:05:38 -0500, Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl>  
wrote:

> *This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm)  
> Pro*
>
> On 1 Jul 2007, at 16:31, Chris Chiasson wrote:
>
>> On Jun 29, 4:40 am, J=E1nos <janos.l... at yale.edu> wrote:
>>> Like barbers who are shaving themselves...  :)
>>>
>>> J=E1nos
>>> P.S.  I am hearing someone turning slowly in his grave....
>>>
>>> On Jun 28, 2007, at 4:26 AM, DrMajorBob wrote:
>>>
>>>> That's entirely contrary to the documentation, which says that Pick
>>>> "picks
>>>> out those ELEMENTS of list for which the corresponding ELEMENT of
>>>> sel is
>>>> True."
>>>
>>>> How is a list its own ELEMENT, if English words mean anything?
>>>
>>>> Bobby
>>
>> LOL
>>
>>
>
> Actually, there is nothing at all unusual about barbers shaving  
> themselves. I am sure lots of barbers do it. Russell's illustration (of  
> a variant of his paradox) was about a barber who "shaved everyone in  
> town who did not shave himself". It would take more than all the  
> resourcefulness of Figoro, the barber of Seville, to relate this to this  
> description of the behaviour of Pick, also taken from the documentation:
>
> Pick[list,sel,patt] picks out those  list[[i1,i2,â?¦]] for which  sel 
> [[i1,i2,â?¦]] matches  patt.
>
> Now, this is a pretty straight forward statement which describes  
> precisely the behaviour of Pick - but I am afraid it's not likely to  
> generate any more feats of philosophical depth and wit.
>
> I do agree that the statement quoted by Bobby can mislead those who  
> insist on taking everything at face value but it was only meant as a  
> "first order approximation" and it is enough to dig a little deeper into  
> the documentation to see that the behaviour of Pick that Chris objected  
> to is in fact clearly documented.
>
> Andrzej Kozlowski
>
>
>
>



-- 
DrMajorBob at bigfoot.com


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