On Mar 7 Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> "How hard is this to understand?" depends on the "processor", the person
> who tries to understand it.
Exactly: her familiarity with the language, and the programming style, etc.
Lots of variables, so I suggest we fix some as constants:
- the programmer is seeing this partricular algorithm for the first time
- the programmer is "ultimately familiar" with the programming language
and style (she has "maximal intuition" for it)
By fixing these variables, I think we're left with only (1) the programming
style in question and (2) the type of problem.
On Mar 8, Michael Arnoldus wrote:
> Would it be fair to say that we're really searching for is a formally
> specified processor that makes the programmer as efficient as possible?
>
Yes, for a given problem. I think we're searching for formal languages (and
formal structures) which are intuitive expressions of algorithms. "Formal"
means a machine is able to execute them. "Intuitive" means people find it
easy to reason using them.
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