Python Strings as Comments

The question was:

In Python we can emulate multiline comments using triple-quoted
strings, but conceptually strings and comments are very different.
I.e. strings are objects, comments are auxillary text discarded at
compile time. Strings are objects created at runtime, comments are
not.

The answer from Steven D'Aprano:

Guido's time-machine strikes again.



>>> import dis
>>> def test():
... x = 1
... """
... This is a triple-quote comment.
... """
... return x
...
>>> dis.dis(test)
2 0 LOAD_CONST 1 (1)
3 STORE_FAST 0 (x)

6 6 LOAD_FAST 0 (x)
9 RETURN_VALUE



String literals -- not just triple-quoted strings, but any string
literal -- that don't go anywhere are discarded by the Python compiler,
precisely so they can be used as comments.

ln explained best

At this article titled Demystifying the Natural Logarithm

His entire series of get an intuition articles on Maths is very good.

Pell's Equation

x^2 - n y^2 = 1

(Pell's equation) which is named after the English mathematician John Pell. It was studied by Brahmagupta in the 7th century, as well as by Fermat in the 17th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pell%27s_equation

8 Bit Byte

Factors behind the ubiquity of the eight bit byte include the popularity of the IBM System/360 architecture, introduced in the 1960s, and the 8-bit microprocessors, introduced in the 1970s. The term octet unambiguously specifies an eight-bit byte (such as in protocol definitions, for example)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte

Otherwise, people have tried with 12 bit byte. Varying byte length in PDP 10. 6, 7 and 9 bits in Univac computers.