Am Donnerstag, den 08.05.2008, 01:12 -0700 schrieb
kodifik@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > | PLEASE DO NOT | :.:\:\:/:/:.:
> > | FEED THE TROLLS | :=.' - - '.=:
>
> I don't think Xah is trolling here (contrary to his/her habit)
> but posing an interesting matter of discussion.
He's always picking interesting topics.
It's just that he fires off his treatise, but never responds.
And the treatises are usually of medium quality, so it isn't even
interesting.
> As a non native english speaker, the first time I ever encountered the
> word "if" was when learning to program. The same can be said of the
> other words (for, then, else...)
I can't confirm that. All of the keywords you mention had a fixed
meaning associated with them when I first encountered them in a
programming language.
> This caused my brain to adscribe them
> meanings completely outside the context of everyday language.
It is possible that this is a false memory.
Brains do that. It's a good practice to mistrust one's one memories.
I'd be doubly suspicious about memories of my language usage.
Of course, your memories may be accurate anyway.
> My point
> is that perhaps this is advantageous. So, contrary to tradition (which
> considers a desirable goal to write programs as close as possible to
> everyday english), I found convenient that programming languages use
> words different from the words of my native tongue.
The tradition you mentioned was taken seriously when Cobol was
developed, I think.
Well, possibly PL/I, too. I don't know.
After that, nearness to natural language has been considered
disadvantageous. The reasons include dawning insights into the true
complexity of natural language, and the realization that natural
language isn't precise enough anyway.
Using keywords borrowed from English is still very common, simply
because it makes it easier to remember them. (Just as the operators in
formal logic are called "and" and "or" and "not", despite their axioms
being very different from the ones used in everyday speech.)
> I suspect that is
> why car and cdr have caught on vs. first end rest.
No, it's because it is less characters.
That's easier to type, particularly if you don't blind-type.
Yeah I know that's silly...
Regards,
Jo
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