Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!hplabs!hp-pcd!uoregon!markv
From: markv@uoregon.uoregon.edu (Mark VandeWettering)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Language illiteracy
Message-ID: <1940@uoregon.uoregon.edu>
Date: 7 May 88 04:50:32 GMT
References: <786@trwcsed.trwrb.UUCP> <8088@ames.arpa> <765@l.cc.purdue.edu> <3151@whutt.UUCP>
Reply-To: markv@drizzle.UUCP (Mark VandeWettering)
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Oregon, Computer Science, Eugene OR
Lines: 32

>In article <765@l.cc.purdue.edu>, cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
> 
> An even bigger problem is that most people, including many mathematicians, are
> unable to see that mathematics is an absolutely essential language _if you are
> considering non-routine situations_.  

	I thought I would leap into the fray and get my bytes in for the
	week.

	First of all, I found your statement above to be meaningless.
	Define "non-routine situations" for me please.  I wouldn't say
	that mathematics is _essential_ to any activity.

	While I am a strong believer in functional proramming, the one
	area of programming which does borrow heavily from mathematics,
	I also believe that languages should be practical.  While FP, ML
	and SASL are neat to play with, I program in C and Lisp. 

	The entire concept of a *perfect* language is silly.  There is
	no such animal.  Your claims that mathematics makes a good
	language is equally silly.  90% of the time I spend reading
	research papers is spent decoding some mathematicians pet
	notation.  Mathematics suffers from exactly the same problems as
	programming languages: ideas get muddled in notation.

	Of course the ultimate in silly is the fact that you claim that
	you can design a better language, but then decline to give us a
	proof by example.

Enough.

mark vandewettering