From: Robert Sanders
Subject: Re: Personal Preference: The Devil in Disguise
Date: 
Message-ID: <RSANDERS.94Aug24151334@hrothgar.mindspring.com>
On 23 Aug 1994 19:29:41 -0700, ·····@CS.Arizona.EDU (Nevin Liber) said:

>> Those who think it a waste of characters to introduce an explicit
>> name such as skip for the empty statement while "nothing" expresses
>> its semantics so eloquently, should realize that the decimal number
>> system was only possible thanks to the introduction of the character
>> "0" for the concept zero (_Discipline_ page 25).

> Although I don't like the empty string either, this seems like a silly
> reason.  Then again, there are scripting languages out there which
> equate 0 with the empty string, much to the annoyance of its users (MPW
> for Macintosh).  There is a distinct difference in concepts between 0
> and nothing.

I think that's the point; there was not a distinction between
nothing and the result of 1-1, and establishing one helped
mathematicians considerably.  There should be a distinct difference
in concepts between a NOP and nothing.

> 		Only 354 more shopping days 'til my birthday (August 12th)!!

Um, speaking of concepts fundamental to mathematics...  Maybe you
forgot to put the .sig-recalculator in your crontab?

  -- Robert