Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!enother.net!enother.net!peer03.iad.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED!nerds-end From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: reading and writing, was A Plain English Compiler Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 17:37:46 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 17 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <14-10-014@comp.compilers> References: <06-02-122@comp.compilers> <06-02-125@comp.compilers> <14-10-005@comp.compilers> <14-10-008@comp.compilers> <14-10-009@comp.compilers> <14-10-010@comp.compilers> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.iecc.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: miucha.iecc.com 1414549213 63160 2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970 (29 Oct 2014 02:20:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@iecc.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 02:20:13 +0000 (UTC) Keywords: design, Cobol Posted-Date: 28 Oct 2014 22:20:13 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com X-Received-Bytes: 1939 X-Received-Body-CRC: 25872366 Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:1399 > Re COBOL, I am fairly sure that the point of making it look like stilted > English was not that they'd thought it'd make it easier to program, but > that it'd be possible for non-programmers, e.g. auditors, to look at the > code and figure out what it did. -John] I think the better solution to this problem, nowadays, would be to transliterate the source code into plain-english. This has been done fairly successfully for formal proof in proof assistants, so I assume it shouldn't be too hard to do for your average programming language, tho maybe it might be useful/necessary to tweak the source language to make the transliteration more readable. Stefan [I wouldn't disagree, but do remember that COBOL was designed over 50 years ago. -John]