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Re: parsability

From Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net>
Newsgroups comp.compilers
Subject Re: parsability
Date 2015-02-08 20:49 +0100
Organization Compilers Central
Message-ID <15-02-019@comp.compilers> (permalink)
References <10-11-017@comp.compilers> <15-02-009@comp.compilers> <15-02-011@comp.compilers> <15-02-017@comp.compilers>

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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

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Thread

Re: Choosing a parser for Mathematica input fateman@gmail.com - 2015-02-05 08:08 -0800
  parsability (was: Choosing a parser for Mathematica input) glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2015-02-06 00:05 +0000
    Re: parsability and human factors "Derek M. Jones" <derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk> - 2015-02-07 12:45 +0000
      Re: parsability and human factors glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2015-02-08 10:32 +0000
        Re: parsability and human factors "Derek M. Jones" <derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk> - 2015-02-10 12:44 +0000
    Re: parsability "Robin Vowels" <robin51@dodo.com.au> - 2015-02-09 00:48 +1100
      Re: parsability Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2015-02-08 20:49 +0100
        Re: parsability news@iecc.com (News Subsystem) - 2015-02-09 14:37 +1100
  Re: Choosing a parser for Mathematica input Robert Jacobson <rljacobson@gmail.com> - 2015-02-06 19:04 -0800

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