Re: [ANN] An extended Lua FAQ

[Colin <colin.hch@...>]

On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 8:32 PM, steve donovan<steve.j.donovan@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 8:19 PM, Colin<colin.hch@gmail.com> wrote:
>> seems rather strange to me: The set of strings over an alphabet, with
>> concatenation as addition, and the empty string as neutral element,
>> forms an algebraical structure, a monoid, that is quite mathematically
>> sound, used frequently in theoretical computer science, and surely not
>> unknown to mathematicians.
>
> This is what comes from making wild assertions, the dark side of the
> chatty-and-relaxed approach to writing tutorials.

(I hope you don't become discouraged too easily, would be a shame.)

> I suppose I've still got the 2nd year maths concepts of Group and
> Field engraved on my brain.  Which is still the best guide (I think)
> for overloading arithmetic operations.  I come from a C++ background,
> and people really do wild things with operators, because They Can.

Regarding the strings as monoid, with the addition as concatenation,
is nowhere near wild, it's wildly normal ;-)

Colin