Re: Unifying invocant and topic naming syntax

[Dan Sugalski]

At 6:56 AM -0500 11/19/02, Tanton Gibbs wrote:

 > How about this:

    $_       # current topic
    $__      # outer topic
    $___     # outer outer topic

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, that is impossible to read correctly
without having to move the cursor and count how many underscores exist.

More to the point, I think it's too much to have to juggle in your (or at least my) head at once. Sure the computer can do it, but that's not much use if I can't figure out what's being referred to.

It seems to me, that in English, it is hard to correctly jump to a previous
topic without being fairly explicit.

I expect this is due to inherent limitations in people. We can't keep too much stuff in flight at any one time in our heads, and stacking referents like this is not something we're well suited for.
--
Dan

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