> No offense, but making surreal numbers in code seems a bit pointless... There may be some value in implementing such a thing personally if you're trying to make sure you understand what surreal numbers really do and how they really work, but reading someone else's implementation just gets in the way.
I'm not offended in the least.
Above and beyond any reasons I may have for writing such code myself, putting code into my essays serves a very important purpose: It makes a personal statement about the balance between code and ideas. There are already excellent sources of information about mathematics and programming languages. For example, the post links to both Mark Chu-Carroll's blog and Paul Graham's essay.
I agree fully that my own writing is far less useful than either of these sources for learning about mathematics or about the design of programming languages. But I must soldier on trying to make my own personal point, and in this case the point includes a certain amount of code.
I'm not offended in the least.
Above and beyond any reasons I may have for writing such code myself, putting code into my essays serves a very important purpose: It makes a personal statement about the balance between code and ideas. There are already excellent sources of information about mathematics and programming languages. For example, the post links to both Mark Chu-Carroll's blog and Paul Graham's essay.
I agree fully that my own writing is far less useful than either of these sources for learning about mathematics or about the design of programming languages. But I must soldier on trying to make my own personal point, and in this case the point includes a certain amount of code.