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Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler

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Tomasz says:
This discussion reminds me of the history of mathematical notation.
The notation we use today was adopted mainly in the 17th century and
contributed to rapid development of mathematics. Before that equations
were usually written in "Plain Latin" or "Plain Arabic", or ""Plain
Whatever". I don't think anybody would recommend going back ;-).

Gerry replies:
We agree that mathematical notation is useful in its place; that's why we
believe the "ultimate" programming language will be a hybrid of different
syntaxes (and graphics, as well) as described here:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-hybrid-programming-language/x/8950932

But we also think that starting with mathematical notation and "bubbling it
up" to the rest of a programming language is and was a mistake.
""Graphics_Lib.ClrScrn(0x000000)" simply can't compete with "Clear the
screen." And most of most programs fall are not mathematical in nature at
all. Most of most programs are things like "move this" or "draw that" or
"put this on the disk". It is our belief that if programming was invented by
poets (with a little help from mathematicians) -- rather than being invented
by mathematicians with an utter disregard for poets -- we'd be further along
the road to computers like the HAL 9000 (which the poets thought would
arrive in 2001).

But things are looking up. We've got Apple's SIRI, Wolfram's ALPHA, Nelson's
INFORM, Microsoft's CORTANA, and now Amazon's ECHO. And, of course, Plain
English!
[This argument has gone about as far as it's going to. Back to compiler design,
please. -John]

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Thread

Writing A Plain English Compiler "Gerry Rzeppa" <gerry.rzeppa@pobox.com> - 2014-11-04 15:50 -0600
  Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.net> - 2014-11-05 00:54 -0600
    Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler "Gerry Rzeppa" <gerry.rzeppa@pobox.com> - 2014-11-06 18:52 -0600
      Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.net> - 2014-11-07 22:54 -0600
        Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler "Gerry Rzeppa" <gerry.rzeppa@pobox.com> - 2014-11-08 02:41 -0600
        Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler "Gerry Rzeppa" <gerry.rzeppa@pobox.com> - 2014-11-08 03:46 -0600
          Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-11-09 01:16 +0000
            Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler "Gerry Rzeppa" <gerry.rzeppa@pobox.com> - 2014-11-10 14:37 -0600
            Re: self-hosting, was Writing A Plain English Compiler Richard Hable <portempa@aon.at> - 2014-11-11 19:50 +0100
              Re: self-hosting, was Writing A Plain English Compiler "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-11-11 23:33 +0000
                Re: self-hosting, was Writing A Plain English Compiler anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-11-12 08:46 +0000
                Re: self-hosting, was Writing A Plain English Compiler "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-11-12 11:15 +0000
              Re: self-hosting, was Writing A Plain English Compiler anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-11-12 08:40 +0000
    Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler "BartC" <bcas@freeuk.com> - 2014-11-07 11:36 +0000
    Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2014-11-07 16:23 -0500
      Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler Richard Hable <portempa@aon.at> - 2014-11-08 17:22 +0100
      Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler Joshua Cranmer 🐧 <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2014-11-08 10:48 -0600
        Re: language design models, was Writing A Plain English Compiler George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2014-11-09 14:30 -0500
          Re: language design models, was Writing A Plain English Compiler "Gerry Rzeppa" <gerry.rzeppa@pobox.com> - 2014-11-10 03:29 -0600
          Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler Tomasz Kowaltowski <tk@ic.unicamp.br> - 2014-11-10 09:13 -0200
            Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler "Gerry Rzeppa" <gerry.rzeppa@pobox.com> - 2014-11-10 17:19 -0600
      Re: matching tasks to languages, was Writing A Plain English Compiler Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2014-11-10 15:37 -0800
    Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler Martin Ward <martin@gkc.org.uk> - 2014-11-10 22:56 +0000
  Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler "BartC" <bcas@freeuk.com> - 2014-11-07 11:39 +0000
    Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-11-08 00:35 +0000
  Fundamentals for a Compiler and Language (was: Writing A Plain English Compiler) federation2005@netzero.com - 2014-12-29 13:30 -0800

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