On Nov 14, Arthur A. Gleckler wrote:
> On Nov 14, 2006, at 11:28 AM, Eli Barzilay wrote:
>
> > On Nov 14, Arthur A. Gleckler wrote:
> >> The invariant I'm interested in preserving is that two symbols that
> >> differ only in case will, unless the programmer does something to
> >> ensure otherwise, intern to the same symbol.
> >
> > Funny that the invariant I'm interested in is that symbols that differ
> > only in case will, unless the programmer does something to ensure
> > otherwise, intern to two different symbols. I hold that opinion for
> > any other cultural features that can be used instead of "case".
> > (Would you want to learn capitalization rules in Fooish?)
>
> If I were reading code written in Fooish, I would already have had
> to learn the rules of Fooish, so it wouldn't be a problem.
Not at all! Here's a typical Scheme code that a Fooish programmer
will write:
(define (ekhad-yoter mispar) (+ mispar 1))
The meaning of this program is determined by a programming language
you probably know. Some Fooish programmers insist on correct use of
some consonants, therefore they argue that the above code should
be:
(define (ekhad-yoter misppar) (+ misppar 1))
In an attempt to make programs more robust, and supported by the
Fooish academy, the FSCII (Fooish Standard Code for Information
Exchange) encoding specifies that "pp" is the same as "p". Being
a technologically influential nation, FSCII is adopted by the rest of
the world. The R9RS is revised, and R10RS has an `apend' function
that is used to append lists.
On Nov 14, Arthur A. Gleckler wrote:
> On Nov 14, 2006, at 12:13 PM, Eli Barzilay wrote:
>
> > Saying that "sigma" is the same as "final sigma" can only come from
> > someone who doesn't have final characters in their language.
>
> Please, let's not have an ad hominem discussion. I'm sure we can
> disagree without doing that.
See above. No personal attack intended. I am seriously arguing that
other cultures can have different meanings that you are not aware of.
There definitely enough Americans that I see who know how to read and
write Hebrew, but in a very artifical/academic way.
On Nov 14, Arthur A. Gleckler wrote:
> On Nov 14, 2006, at 12:20 PM, John Cowan wrote:
>
> >> Saying that "sigma" is the same as "final sigma" can only come from
> >> someone who doesn't have final characters in their language.
> >
> > Indeed. As has been pointed out before, "philoS." with final
> > sigma is the word "philos" at the end of a sentence, whereas
> > "philos." with a normal sigma is an abbreviation, perhaps for
> > "philosophia".
>
> But those are both cases with punctuation in them. It's the
> punctuation that is making the special interpretation, not the case
> of the final character alone. A symbol in a program is not affected
> in the same way.
Hebrew will have the same problem with acronyms: a plain charater at
the end of a word is usually a indication of an acronym. Usually
there should be punctuation (a " character between the last two
letters), but especially in code the meaning would be read
differently.
BTW, Hebrew does have final versions for some letters, but no capitals
-- so you get to choose one of:
* Make final and non-final characters be the same in all languages
only if they have also upper and lower case forms.
* Decide final and non final characters in Hebrew be the same even if
it makes no sense at all. (In Hebrew.)
Both choices look bad IMO.
--
((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) Eli Barzilay:
http://www.barzilay.org/ Maze is Life!
Received on Tue Nov 14 2006 - 15:40:50 UTC