In a message dated 7/6/2009 3:54:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time, usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk writes:
Although the point could have been put more tactfully, I think the salient point here is that "English-like" programming languages have been tried before many times, and have (with the possible exception of COBOL) consistently been rejected in favour of compact equation-like languages.>>
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Neil let me just point out in counter-point that the two longest-living third-generation langages, COBOL and BASIC are both still alive and well.
Both use a most English-like foundation.
Is Python more represented in want-ads ? Most businesses still use older generation languages, regardless of what is being taught in university.
Will Johnson
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On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 11:21 AM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Neil let me just point out in counter-point that the two longest-living third-generation langages, COBOL and BASIC are both still alive and well. Both use a most English-like foundation. Is Python more represented in want-ads ? Most businesses still use older generation languages, regardless of what is being taught in university.
Ball-and-chain legacy issues substantiate your argument?
Note my usage of "parasitic" earlier may have been a bit mistated - no programming language is really "parasitic" to any natural language, it just borrows certain concepts and words from it.
In reality I don't think anyone disagrees with your basic point. But if you dislike Lua, Python, etc. because they aren't similar enough to English, then usenet.tonal.clara's
-Steve
2009/7/6 stevertigo stvrtg@gmail.com:
On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 11:21 AM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Neil let me just point out in counter-point that the two longest-living third-generation langages, COBOL and BASIC are both still alive and well. Both use a most English-like foundation. Is Python more represented in want-ads ? Most businesses still use older generation languages, regardless of what is being taught in university.
Ball-and-chain legacy issues substantiate your argument?
BASIC is around for more than legacy issues and is of interest to us since it was meant to solve much the same problem (how to make programing accessible to non programmers). While it's true program languages have pretty much given up experimenting with natural language and similar it's also true that programing has shifted from something any computer user has to do to something rather more specialised. We on the other hand want to do the opposite. We need to have something that non programmers can use which was effectively the problem that BASIC was looking to solve.
Most existing languages were not built to solve that problem so using them would be unwise.
What we should do depends on a number of factors. If we think we have worked out most of the things templates are likely to be used for (we had better we are running out of space in articles to put them) then a custom designed language which is setup to make those functions accessible but with a full general purpose setup to allow for people to do other things (incidentally that would be 1,2 and 3 of what wikipedia thinks are the eight design principles of BASIC) would in many ways be the best approach.
If we think there is a lot of stuff that people are going to want to use templates for that has not yet been done then a generalised language with simplification for existing common functions bolted on would likely be a better approach.
Heh it would be quite possible to make construction of infoboxes fairly easy in a basic like language. There are various reasons why this is a bad idea (adding reasons for retaining capslock is never a good idea). Still BASIC's handling of IF, THEN, ELSE is something of an improvement on the current setup.
On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 12:20 PM, genigeniice@gmail.com wrote:
While it's true program languages have pretty much given up experimenting with natural language and similar, it's also true that programing has shifted from something any computer user has to do to something rather more specialised. We on the other hand want to do the opposite. We need to have something that non programmers can use which was effectively the problem that BASIC was looking to solve.
Hm.
-Steven
Continued... ..if you dislike Lua, Python, etc. because they aren't similar enough to English, then Neil's offering: "PRINT THE NUMBER OF CHARACTERS BEFORE THE FIRST OCCURRENCE OF THE COLON CHARACTER IN THE..." makes the substantial point, in addition to being esoterically funny.
-Steve