> I don't know exactly how this message got marked "unread" again,
> No, here it is, the server at Sun has decided to send it again,
No it didn't. :-) Those are cascading headers (read the "by" field),
Sun's internal mail system has 3-4 hops and 2 firewalls to go through.
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> > Nathan Wiger wrote:
> >
> > Well, unfortunately I think you're doomed to fail then. You're forcing
> > constraints on yourself that Perl cannot fulfill, and which I can't see
> > Larry approving.
>
> Lots and lots of human languages, like, all of them, allow WORD WORD to mean
> vastly different things depending on what the words are.
[snip]
> This is completely transparent to human beings, who are very good at it.
[snip]
> I think we're ready for computers that can figure out what language the user is
> trying to talk to them in, in fact according to my Secret Heinlein Society Diagram
> Of The Future (copyright 1952) we're somewhat behind schedule.
Having done my UG thesis on artificial intelligence and natural language
parsing I can tell you one reason why it's taken so long: It's hard.
Serial programs and parallel neural networks are two separate entities.
The most successful language parsers are massively parallel processing
machines, but they still suck by human standards. PDP (parallel
distributed processing) was a great step forward, but there's a long way
to go until we have Star Trek computers asking us how our day is.
My argument is not "This is too hard", though. My argument is that Perl
has to have a somewhat coherent syntax for it to be usable. English and
Japanese are great languages, but they also take 15 - 20 years to
achieve fluency in. This type of investment of time in a programming
language is not realistic.
Anyways, embedding C in Perl is neat idea. But I think if you want to do
it successfully, you'll have to make it stand out.
CBLOCK {
/* Can embed C inside of CBLOCK blocks */
#include <sys/types.h>
int x;
char * name;
}
Intermingling it freely:
my Dog $spot;
int x;
my int $y;
#include <sys/types.h>
char * name;
#do some regexp matching
s/x/5/; /* match the C value of x defined above */
Is really confusing, even for us humans. :-)
-Nate
