Re: Use of punctuation in a language?

Doug Landauer <landauer@got.net>
11 Nov 2003 14:39:57 -0500

          From comp.compilers

Related articles
[2 earlier articles]
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? rosing@peakfive.com (MattR) (2003-11-01)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (Glen Herrmannsfeldt) (2003-11-02)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? joachim.durchholz@web.de (Joachim Durchholz) (2003-11-08)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com (Robert A Duff) (2003-11-08)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? bear@sonic.net (Ray Dillinger) (2003-11-11)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? jcownie@etnus.com (James Cownie) (2003-11-11)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? landauer@got.net (Doug Landauer) (2003-11-11)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? Martin.Ward@durham.ac.uk (Martin Ward) (2003-11-11)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? jvorbrueggen@mediasec.de (Jan C. =?iso-8859-1?Q?Vorbr=FCggen?=) (2003-11-21)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? vbdis@aol.com (2003-11-21)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? rkrayhawk@aol.com (2003-12-03)
Re: Use of punctuation in a language? house@usq.edu.au (Ron House) (2003-12-03)
| List of all articles for this month |

From: Doug Landauer <landauer@got.net>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 11 Nov 2003 14:39:57 -0500
Organization: The Web
References: 03-10-129 03-11-016 03-11-034
Keywords: syntax
Posted-Date: 11 Nov 2003 14:39:57 EST

  Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote:
  [ ... a bunch of good stuff, most of which I agree with and
              have snipped from this followup... However: ]
>
> I don't like languages with significant end-of-lines, because you
> inevitably end up needing to write something longer than a physical line
> (on a piece of paper, or in a window), and then you need some kludgery
> to say "this particular end-of-line is not a terminator".


IMHO, a backslash at the end of a line is hardly "kludgery".




> > > [ It's a little easier for
> > > compilers to parse languages with statement separators and explicit
> > > brackets, but I don't find that anywhere near as compelling as the
> > > human factors involved. -John]


Worth repeating :-)


> Or is it our tie to the 7-bit ascii character set that causes trouble?


It would be cool to be able to use those European-style
double-angle quotation marks. Too bad different countries
use them with opposite meanings.


> P.S. Thanks to our esteemed moderator for allowing us to chat about
> language design issues. They're at least *related* to compilers (as are
> linkers, debuggers, etc), and anyway, where else can language design be
> discussed intelligently?


comp.lang.functional sometimes, with an FP focus;
comp.lang.misc sometimes.


Several web fora and mailing lists:


Lambda, the Ultimate Programming Languages weblog
    ( http://lambda.weblogs.com/ and/or
        http://lambda.weblogs.com/discuss/?mode=day )


The Pragmatic Programmers' mailing list
        http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pragprog/


The yahoo "langsmiths" mailing list
        http://groups.yahoo.com/group/langsmiths/


Occasionally, Joel on Software's discussion area,
        http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp
--
        Doug Landauer landauer@got.dot.net.invalid


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