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From: preston@titan.rice.edu (Preston Briggs)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: What I'd really like to see in an if-statement...
Message-ID: <536@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 10 Aug 89 22:10:50 GMT
References: <8577@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <14251@haddock.ima.isc.com> <516@brazos.Rice.edu> <8606@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
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Reply-To: preston@titan.rice.edu (Preston Briggs)
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In article <8606@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> lacey@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (John Lacey) writes:
>In article <516@brazos.Rice.edu>  (3383 of comp.lang.misc)
>    preston@titan.rice.edu (Preston Briggs) writes:
>} On the other hand, versions of LISP allow things like
>} 	(+ a b c d)
>} and
>} 	(< a b c d)
>} 
>} which seems best of all.  Maybe we should just give up on
>} "normal" algebraic notation as a bad idea extended too far.
>
>One is postfix and the other is infix, but they have identical meanings.
>So why is one unnatural and the other best of all?  Also, perhaps there
>are places where algebraic notation [which, by the way, (< a b c d) is
>an example of] is not the best option, but I don't think that programming
>languages are such a place.  Indeed, algebra is only recently becoming
>the powerful tool in programming that it is in mathematics (abstract data
>types, algebraic specification, and so on).

Yes, you're certainly correct about my mistakes.

On the other hand, the point I was attempting to make
still seems valid.  That is, explicitely parenthesized prefix
notation seems a better representation for complex expressions.
I will agree that simple expressions are more simply written
in C or Pascal---infix notation and commonly understood rules
of precedence help achieve a clear, compact representation.

But C has 16 levels of precedence!
I think this is an indication of too much complexity
crammed into the notion of .

I think Lisp/Scheme/... have the right idea,
at least regarding expressions---a simple, consistant
notation that can be easily extended.

Preston Briggs
preston@titan.rice.edu