strings and numbers

[Geoffrey Knauth <address@hidden>]

On Wednesday, May 21, 2003, at 14:26 US/Eastern, Anton van Straaten 
wrote:
> How do you (or the language) know that "3" is a number?
> [...] incorrect program behavior when the string wasn't formatted as 
> expected

Another example where a human will see a number but a computer will see 
something else, or maybe three something elses:

1,012,015:   A million twelve thousand and fifteen?  A one, a twelve 
(or ten), and a fiften (or thirteen)?

Then again, a European human might say you can't have more than one 
decimal.

Geoffrey
--
Geoffrey S. Knauth | http://knauth.org/gsk