Re: Writing A Plain English Compiler

Tomasz says:
This discussion reminds me of the history of mathematical notation.
The notation we use today was adopted mainly in the 17th century and
contributed to rapid development of mathematics. Before that equations
were usually written in "Plain Latin" or "Plain Arabic", or ""Plain
Whatever". I don't think anybody would recommend going back ;-).


Gerry replies:
We agree that mathematical notation is useful in its place; that's why we
believe the "ultimate" programming language will be a hybrid of different
syntaxes (and graphics, as well) as described here:


https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-hybrid-programming-language/x/8950932


But we also think that starting with mathematical notation and "bubbling it
up" to the rest of a programming language is and was a mistake.
""Graphics_Lib.ClrScrn(0x000000)" simply can't compete with "Clear the
screen." And most of most programs fall are not mathematical in nature at
all. Most of most programs are things like "move this" or "draw that" or
"put this on the disk". It is our belief that if programming was invented by
poets (with a little help from mathematicians) -- rather than being invented
by mathematicians with an utter disregard for poets -- we'd be further along
the road to computers like the HAL 9000 (which the poets thought would
arrive in 2001).


But things are looking up. We've got Apple's SIRI, Wolfram's ALPHA, Nelson's
INFORM, Microsoft's CORTANA, and now Amazon's ECHO. And, of course, Plain
English!
[This argument has gone about as far as it's going to. Back to compiler design,
please. -John]

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