Re: Pointers to "why C behaves like that ?"

  Robert A Duff wrote:
> Languages should be designed primarily for the human reader.


Oftentimes this is stated as code for "languages should be designed
with lots and lots of words and stuff instead of those naughty braces
and brackets '}', '{', ')', '(', and cryptic symbolism" all the while
completely forgetting that the vast majority of people on Earth will
find the words EVEN MORE cryptic (even more: because something's
less understandable when it's longer too) because the language the words
are in is not their native language!


The only assurance for making the language suitable for humans (as
opposed to humans that speak language X at the expense of all other
humans) is maximizing the incidence of wordless symbolism at the
expense of anything natural language-specific.


So, really, even the while statement should be replaced by -- say -- the
Kleene star, e.g.
                                            {S A? T}*
for the equivalent:
x: S if (A) { T goto x; }.
and -- of course -- "goto" would be replaced by "=>" or "@" or the like.
x: S if (A) { T @x; }.


"if" we can probably let slide. It's short. In that respect, we're
fortunate the English word for 'if" was not "descombamulate".

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.