But at least on average every 23rd word would be numberwang! Somehow languages with far less ambiguity still spawn art and culture and I am one of those weird people who believe that there is beauty in good code. Some of that is due to the names used, but I think there is more to it than just that.
I refuse to accept the argument that a language needs to be broken for cultural reasons. And maybe there is space for more than one language, too -- writing a specification just has different requirements to telling a joke. And let's not forget the classic mathematicians joke: "Let epsilon be an arbitrary large number", which is actually a pretty formal specification, just an unexpected one. Of course only mathematicians think that's funny :-) Late here. Brain jumpy. Better stop. Peter Steven Herod wrote: > I've remarked that if programmers wrote literature all you'd get is a > set of unique words and a reference numbers telling you the placement > of each word in the text - on the basis that this is a more efficient > way of handling the book (no redundant words!) > > Luckily for the worlds art and culture, we're not involved in the > design... > > On Apr 22, 12:41 pm, Peter Becker <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Ruben Reusser wrote: >> >>> When I was a younger programmer I always wondered why we don't have a >>> symbolic programming language free of any text - except maybe for >>> resources. Should be easier to parse and would be fair to everybody. >>> >> ... then he encountered APL and stopped dreaming :-) >> >> But seriously: I think languages should be defined in terms of an AST. >> It just won't buy you much, though: your libraries still need names for >> all the methods and while you might still be willing to use mathematical >> symbols for your collection API it probably ends there. >> >> Peter >> >> >> >> >>> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 8:39 AM, Todd Costella >>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >>> >>> Jeff just posted this on his twitter feed: >>> http://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1564775356 >>> >>> <quote> >>> c'mon. What serious language has characters wearing little tiny >>> hats? àèìòù áéíóúý âêîôû ãñõ äëïöüŸ Åå? or beards? çÇ -- I REST MY >>> CASE! >>> >>> about 4 hours ago from web >>> >>> codinghorror >>> Jeff Atwood >>> </quote> >>> >>> sigh. welcome to diversity. >>> >>> (Yes I realize this is said tounge in cheek. Maybe.) >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: [email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]> >>> [mailto:[email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Mwanji Ezana >>> Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 4:24 AM >>> To: The Java Posse >>> Subject: [The Java Posse] Re: Les CastCodeurs == Java Posse in French >>> >>> On Apr 17, 4:27 pm, "Todd Costella" <[email protected]> wrote: >>> > If I heard correctly, one of the main reasons they fellows are >>> doing the podcast is that they work all day in English and wanted >>> to have some outlet to discuss technical topics in French. I have >>> a ton of respect for folks that speak multiple languages. >>> >>> > It's something we (English) North Americans just take for >>> granted that we'll do a Google search and find an answer in >>> English. I do wish the fellows the best of luck with their >>> Podcast. I'll be following along as best I can keeping up with >>> Java news. >>> >>> That reminds me of Jeff Atwood's recent statements on his blog and the >>> Stack Overflow podcast about English as the only language that counts >>> for programmers. For someone who's created such a successful piece of >>> social software, I'm surprised he didn't see why people would want to >>> talk about programming in their own language. >>> >>> Mwanji >>> >>> -- >>> Ruben Reusser >>> headwire.com <http://headwire.com>, Inc >>> 949 595 4365 >>> > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
