[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
To repeat again, mathematics *can* be precise and *wants* to be precise but as communicated in mathematical *glyphs* as you say just isn't. It relies on lots of background info.
Yes, but the difference is that the background info for mathematics *is* precise. There is a directly derivable chain from very few, very simple first principles the whole way through partial derivatives to the simplification that derives the chain rule you talk about. This is simply *not true* for programming in general.
Even if I start with lambda calculus, it is very hard to get to a useful description of something as simple as Scheme. Go look at Chapter 5 in Lisp in Small Pieces. Look at how many "shortcuts" need to be taken to produce something even remotely tractable, and then start adding things like functions of variable arity, global and local environments, choice operators, etc.
We don't derive from 1+1=2 because some *else* has done the derivation and it is accepted by other mathematicians (actually, 1+1=2 is apparently one of the hard things to prove in mathematics and is closer to axiom than theorem). We accept that others have done the derivations and therefore do not feel the need to tread the same ground.
And, even in mathematics, sometimes things get rearranged suddenly at the axiom level. Non-euclidean geometry is a good example.
-a -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
