From: bonney@esds.mdc.com (Greg Bonney)
Subject: Re: TP or C ?
Organization: Visual Simulation Systems
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 14:52:49 GMT

In article <5632@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at> mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner) writes:
>From article <1992Jul27.153004.9049@esds.mdc.com>, by bonney@esds.mdc.com (Greg Bonney):
>>>moderately long keywords separated by whitespaces are easier to read
>
>> This sounds like a good argument.  However, you could take this to extremes.
>
>Note that I said "moderately long".  Nobody in his right mind would
>use keywords like "begin_for_loop" (I think Ada does come close to
>this in quite a few cases, but we're not discussing Ada).
>
>> For instance, why don't mathematicians write out "a squared plus b squared
>> equals c squared"?
>
>1. Do you think it's done this way in Pascal?  Then leave this discussion
>and read something about it before you argue.  

Actually I did Pascal for a living for over 2 years (not to mention all the
Pascal I did in school).  I have used Turbo Pascal, VAX Pascal, IBM Pascal/VS,
and Cromemco Pascal (Cromemco is a Unix box).  And even if I had very little
knowledge of Pascal, who are you to tell people not to participate in these
discussions?!  Anyway, my next sentence (which you left out) mentioned that
Cobol just about goes to these extremes.  I never said anything about Pascal
and neither did you (except in the subject heading).

>
>2. Did you think I advocate that?  Then read my posting again before
>you twist my words.

No, I didn't think you advocated that.  Sorry if my wording was unclear.
I certainly was not intending to "twist" anything.

>
>Trying to discount arguments by taking them to ridiculous extremes is
>an old technique, but your arguments have no basis in what I wrote.  I
>was talking of "keywords", not operators.  I did not mention COBOL -
>you did.

I wasn't trying to "argue" at all.  I was just contributing some thoughts
that came to mind as I read your posting.  I obviously misunderstood your 
posting.  But if you weren't talking about operators, what were you talking
about?  I've never seen keywords like "if" and "else" replaced with "strings
of special characters".  Have you?

> 
>> Another example: why don't musicians write out music in English, Italian,
>> or German instead of using musical notation?  In these cases, special symbols
>> do increase readability.  
>
>You are taking this to extremes, not me.  Note that music does have a

Maybe.

>fairly limited vocabulary, and formatting in lines depends more on
>line length than semantics.  When sequence and a single kind of
>unconditional loop are the only control constructs you have, then a
>simple notation is indeed sufficient.  Music also doesn't need

I was more talking about operators, not keywords.  From your posting talking
about special characters stringed together, I thought you were talking about
Pascal's use of things like "and" as opposed to C's use of "&&".  We obviously
weren't on the same wavelength.  Sorry.  (By the way, if you think music has a
"limited vocabulary", go to your local library and check out a music
dictionary!)

>variable names, and only three data types (pitch, key, extent).  Are
>you proposing cutting C down to that size?

I didn't intend to take the analogy that far.  I had no intention of saying
that music had loops and data structures.  Give me a break!  Who's taking
things to extremes now?!  The original intent of my posting was to say that
"the use of special symbols can sometimes increase readability".  Okay?

>
>Anyway, since you appear to like extreme examples, don't you love APL?
>APL syntax is the C naming and keyword approach taken to the extreme,
>with a simpler grammar thrown in for free.  Must be a dream of a
>language for you.

I don't know anything about APL, and I don't see why these discussions so often
digress to meaningless sarcasm and insults.  For the record, I happen to like
both Pascal and C.