I'm sorry for annoying you. You can be annoying to me sometimes, too, both of which are beside the point. I'm sorry for making assumptions about your line of thought, but you've done the same to multiple other people in this very thread
1,5. All of that is beside the point.
The point is that you have what you say is a very simple way to describe the situation. merlyn in the same thread very simply stated that explanation and linked to a pointer in one of his columns. Your nodes have not been simply pointing out that explanation, but actively criticizing the explanations of others. merlyn managed to promote the same view of the problem without all the drama.
You appear -- and I'm trying hard not to assume this so please correct me if my interpretation of your writing is incorrect -- you appear to be saying that anyone on PerlMonks should be assumed to be ready for the most straightforward explanation2, and that we should backpedal and teach them how to be ready for that knowledge when explaining things if their personal frame of reference does not prepare them for it. The opposite assumption is being made by others -- that if someone asks a question which appears to be towards a beginner's thinking that one should try to teach the next rule and exception up the chain3. What proof does either side have? Do you have support for the superiority of your stance or the supposed harm done by the other? Are you so sure what you infer4 about the concept (sorry, "meme") presented by FunkyMonk is in fact inferred by others and is actually harmful?
Footnotes in the readmore... they discuss the noted issues at a little more depth.
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You have attributed to me a model of the language (either of my understanding of it or the model which I would use to inform others) which does not include assignment of one list to another. You did so based on discussion which omitted part of that model you say is missing because it was not relevant. You made an inference from FunkyMonk's node that he did not intend and proclaimed how surprised you were at what he said, then you backed off and said "implied". To make your logical points about how FunkyMonk was wrong, you "upgraded" selected words in the phrase that he never wrote. You're the one who decided how to determine whether "a list" meant "a list literal" or "a list of scalar values" in someone else's writing.
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You feel free to choose Aristotle's understanding of the relationship of Earth and other objects in space over that of Anaximander's or Pliny the Elder's understanding over that of Lucretius as an analogy rather than Einstein's over Newton's over Kepler's and Galileo's over Copernicus over Aristotle's and Pliny the Elder's. If your argument is specifically that understanding the exact true relation of an operator and its operands is so basic that no progress with the language can be made without accepting that truth, then you may have an argument. Then you would only have to show how that is the case (against which others will undoubtedly contend). Otherwise, you're just selecting a different position on the same arc of refining knowledge from one model to another, more correct model. Let's assume that whether this is suitable for a single student rather than science as a whole is a separate matter for now.
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In schools, second graders are not taught relativity. They are taught the Earth is round, and are told that formerly group X (and X is often chosen mistakenly) thought it was flat. Then they are taught that gravity simply means that "what goes up must come down". Then sometime later they are taught that any reaction causes an equal and opposite reaction, and that sometimes that reaction can overcome gravity (so things that go up sometimes don't come down). They learn about the conservation of matter as "matter is never created nor destroyed" which implies it never become something other than matter. Then they are taught that sometimes matter can be converted to energy, and that even though the energy inherent in the matter is conserved it is no longer matter. These same children are taught that there are four states of any matter, but then taught that some compounds do not have a stable liquid state and that there is the Bose-Einstein condensate. They are taught that the matter is made up of molecules that are made up of atoms. Then they are taught that atoms are made up of electrons, neutrons, and protons. Then they learn about positrons, muons, quarks, and neutrinos. Eventually they learn that Newton's laws are flawed at scales where time dilates, that some liquids become solid under stress (the classic corn starch experiment), and that the whole mess might be made up of something called "strings" which vibrate to make quarks and everything else. So you can argue that learning by rules and exceptions is counterproductive. You can even claim it is only counterproductive when it causes misconceptions. However, it seems to be the way people learn and are accustomed to learning.
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Let's talk about "imply" and "infer". You implied (or was I not meant to infer) that I am "full of bull" simply because you can choose to impugn me by my username, which may or may not have been a simple game to catch me in an inference error that you yourself may have made earlier regarding FunkyMonk's post... ;-) ... which is not a proper logical argument on any level. You use a strawman if you are arguing my username has anything to do with my posts in this thread. If you accuse me of being wrong in inferring more than what was written because I have made the same error that you did earlier, then you were also wrong earlier. There is no way that is an effective argument. I don't know your motive in posting that, but it certainly doesn't work. Perhaps you were trying to prove a point, which it doesn't other than that English text is ambiguous. Perhaps you were trying to rile me through some comment I would perceive as an insult but which you could thinly claim was not. Either way, that seems to have failed.
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You assume I'm arguing that FunkyMonk correct and that you are wrong. I'm just arguing that both sides had a point and that you seem rather dismissive of the other side's point. I actually hope you're right, as it would make helping people so much simpler. Unfortunately I have my doubts that either solution works best for every person asking a question. I would guess that like most topics, a different approach works best for different seekers of wisdom. I think presenting both as alternative ways to understanding is not a terrible idea.