on Fri, 24 Oct 2003 12:11:49PM -0700, Erik Steffl insinuated: > Nori Heikkinen wrote: > >On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 06:47:13PM -0700, Erik Steffl insinuated: > > > >>Nori Heikkinen wrote: > >> > >>>on Sun, 19 Oct 2003 12:38:45PM -0700, Erik Steffl insinuated: > >> > >>... > >> > >>>>of course, you can create various complex and ambiguous sentences in > >>>>english, the point is that you can take few forms of sentences and > >>>>have a working language (that's pretty much what BASIC (talking > >>>>about programming language) is). > >>> > >>>you can do that in both languages. > >> > >> let's say you have a function called isRed(x) (returns true if x is > >>red). Now how would you call this function in german? it would never > >>be in agreement with all possible x (grammatically). > > > > > >how so not? > > > >istRot( dieGabel ) > >istRot( dasMesser ) > >istRot( derLoeffel ) > > > >how are any of those less grammatical than their english equivalents: > > > >isRed( theFork ) > >isRed( theKnife ) > >isRed( theSpoon ) > > > >?? > > > >>not sure if this is the best example > > > > > >nope, guess not. try again if you're trying to make a coherent > >argument. > > > > > >>- perhaps in this case it would be acceptable to use istRot, > >>regardless of gender of x. > > > > > >in fact, in german, adjectives only agree with nouns if they > >IMMEDIATELY PRECEDE the noun. so you have "die Gabel ist rot" (the > >fork is red), but "die rote Gabel" (the red fork) -- note that the > >feminine "-e" only applies to the adjective "rot" in the case in which > >it immediately precedes the noun. > > that's what I was confused about. doesn't Rot (in function name) > immediately precede the noun? shouldn't the function name be > istRote(gabel)? I guess you could argue that even though it's > written istRote(gabel) it really is ist gabel rot (because that > would be proper question)
you just answered your own question here. the implied sentence from
"istRot( gabel )" is "ist die Gabel rot?" -- and as you noted, in the
implied sentence, 'rot' does not immediately preced 'Gabel'. note
that the exact same word-shuffling is necessary from *english* code to
an *english* grammatical sentence -- "isRed( fork )" --> "is the fork
red?".
you just illustrated the point i've been trying to make here -- in the
above two examples, neither english nor german code makes a
grammatical sentence. both imply one, sure -- but that doesn't mean
either language is better suited to code than the other.
> >now, think of an example in which you encounter anything remotely like
> >full sentence structure in code, and try to apply this. good luck.
>
> what about if the function name is verb? what if it's not a question?
>
> e.g. getRed(apple), or make(red, apple) etc.
boolisch bekommRot( Apfel ) { }
mach( rot, Apfel );
what's different from English about those two? again, the implied
sentences are clear; the underlying code is equally as ungrammatical
in both.
</nori>
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/V\ http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~nori/jnl/
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