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Mathematics, like most languages meant for humans, is ambiguous -- maybe less than most, though. Programming languages are so unambiguous, on the other hand, th
by omaranto 16y ago
Mathematics, like most languages meant for humans, is ambiguous -- maybe less than most, though. Programming languages are so unambiguous, on the other hand, that not only people but even computers can understand them!
- cdavid 16y agoWhat's ambiguous about mathematical notation ?
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago[1,2] Meaning?
- cdavid 16y agoWell, what does a + b means in C++ ? You are playing with the work meaning here. Of course, the syntax of a language is well defined - because it needs to be parsed, hopefully somewhat unambiguously by compiler/interpreter. But that's not very interesting, because that's not really how we program, at least not anymore: you write something to be read by other people more than something to be understood by computer, and two equivalent programs are often not equivalent at all in readability. So maybe my choice of words was not optimal, and I should have chosen readability instead of ambiguity. I think the focus on being executable by the computer is the wrong one. That's the trivial part.
- simonb 16y agohttp://sandersn.com/blog//index.php/2008/06/06/math_notation_is_terrible http://sandersn.com/blog//index.php/2008/06/06/math_notation...