Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feeder01.blueworldhosting.com!news.misty.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED!nerds-end From: Hans-Peter Diettrich Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: parsability Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2015 20:49:45 +0100 Organization: Compilers Central Lines: 24 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <15-02-019@comp.compilers> References: <10-11-017@comp.compilers> <15-02-009@comp.compilers> <15-02-011@comp.compilers> <15-02-017@comp.compilers> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.iecc.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: miucha.iecc.com 1423440715 83542 2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970 (9 Feb 2015 00:11:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@iecc.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2015 00:11:55 +0000 (UTC) Keywords: parse Posted-Date: 08 Feb 2015 19:11:55 EST X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:1521 Robin Vowels schrieb: > A number of special characters have traditionally acquired multiple uses. > The asterisk, parentheses, apostrophe, colon, period, feature heavily > on account of the limited number of characters available in equipment > of the era (48-character set, 60 character set, etc.) and continue to do so > for historical reasons. IMO the real and persistent limit is the keyboard, with a limited number of keys. Increasing the number of keys is not a solution, because then it may be more time consuming to find an special key, instead of reusing a character or typing more characters. Why didn't APL succeed in the long run? OTOH there exist languages (and speakers) of languages with bigger character sets, like Japanese or Chinese. What if people, used to according input methods (character composition...), started to invent and use dedicated glyphs for keywords and operators, in new programming languages? Wouldn't this prevent coders of other *natural* languages from using such a *programming* language, for its unreadability and complicated keying? DoDi