3 ms·
Most subsets of a physical calculator are properly called “a broken calculator”.
by cwillu 3mo ago
Most subsets of a physical calculator are properly called “a broken calculator”.
- skeledrew 3mo agoThis isn't about the shell of a calculator though, but the functionality. Like if the only operations are addition and subtraction, theoretically you could derive the effects of other operations but it's extremely limiting.
- bunderbunder 3mo agoSo yeah, half of Python might still be Turing-complete, but it wouldn’t really be Python for any practical purpose. Just like how a device that can’t multiply or divide is not a 4-function calculator; it’s more like an adding machine. Many of which did multiply by serial addition.
- TZubiri 3mo agoIf you write a program in python, say a hello world: ' def hello_world(): print("hello, world") ' Is that not python? Yet it uses a subset of python? That program can be run by either a python runtime, or a python subset runtime. Now if you were to run a python subset program, like a hello world, you would get: ' def hello_world(): print("hello, world") ' Whoah, it's the same thing. Turns out every program you write with a subset of a language, is valid for the super language. Subjectively also, if the subset is big enough, it feels like that language, if it uses 'def' for functions, that's python. 'I know it when I see it' kinda deal. I think the confusion comes from the mathematical folk reading "subset of X is X", and implying that "subset of X=X". But this is natural language, not mathematical language, when I say that "dog is mammal", I'm not saying that "dog = mammal" I'm saying that "dog ∈ mammal", and "subset of python ∈ python"