Re: way-OT: regularity of german v. english [was: Re: OT - Programming Languages w/o English Syntax]
On Mon, Oct 27, 2003 at 10:36:20PM -0500, Nori Heikkinen wrote:
> i'm arguing that _neither_ english _nor_ german is perfectly suited to
> code, since one needs to do some translation to get the sentence into
> the form in which a human would say it.
>
> on top of that, i'm arguing that _no_ language fits this bill. think
> about it -- if there were a human language that could be described as
> easily as a computer language, we would be able to express that human
> language as a finite state automaton, thereby solving the language
> problem, and the whole of AI with it. there's a reason we write in a
> formal, simplified language when we code!
I believe that. Pure vulcan logic. Yet we are confronted with the bare
fact: people code in english. You could argue "American Hedgemony,"
except computer scientists not to fit that stereotype, so why did it
happen?
I keep telling people I never used to think I was better than everybody
else until you keep telling me I am :-)
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