on Mon, 27 Oct 2003 07:51:17PM -0800, Tom insinuated:
> 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.
the distinction that's being missed here is that people don't code in
english, people use english words as symbols in their code. there's a
huge difference.
</nori>
--
.~. nori @ sccs.swarthmore.edu
/V\ http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~nori/jnl/
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