4 ms·

How precisely do you expect to be able to map from something imprecise to something precise? The idea of giving the author complete control over the higher lev

by 4ydx 12y ago

How precisely do you expect to be able to map from something imprecise to something precise? The idea of giving the author complete control over the higher level terms they use sounds like a nightmare in the making honestly :) Being able to understand somebody elses code requires that it be written in a way that is at least familiar in terms of syntax. To say that natural language is "effective" does not, honestly, ring a bell with me. I guess we think about effective on totally different terms. Math is effective. Spoken language is not in my opinion. On a general level this sounds more like somebody feeling frustrated that the computer didn't "understand them".

hzhou321 12y ago
How do you map from something imprecise to something precise in daily life? For example, you tell the kids "go to school", very vague (walk or bus or wait for you to drive), and each detailed steps require even detailed actions (composability). So how did you reach the efficiency with only "go to school"? First of all, we have mechanisms to establish conventions -- which is the user maintainable dictionary I was referring to. Second, we have direct feed back -- if the kids didn't move or the school called, we know something went wrong, (then we strengthen or correct the conventions). In the two layer programming structure, both layers are within programmer's access. Programmer try to work at the top layer as we do in our daily life, but we will get signals from lower level compiler, and we can verify the lower level code directly (which is as readable as what you do today -- you are only working at the lower level language today). It is not one or the other, that is how we manage the daily efficiency. Are you a mathematician? How much math do you speak anyway? Even my fellow mathematician convey most of the mathematical meaning in English. Can you imagine mathematicians only write in math (as today's programmer do)? Theorem, at least from the math books on my shelf, are mostly composed in English (more words than math). And even in pure math equations, we make up new symbols (with special meanings under special context, not just operators, what do you think the concept of algebra is) all the time, which is along the same line of vocabulary based programming. If you think I am saying that math can work with English only, then you misunderstood me.
- 4ydx 12y ago
  Of course math works across all languages and I didn't think you were implying that, but using a word in a mathematical context carries a lot of precision with it. It isn't simply a layman's usage. The words don't make the description work, but the math behind it does. This applies to programming languages as well.

by 4ydx 12y ago

hzhou321 12y ago

How do you map from something imprecise to something precise in daily life? For example, you tell the kids "go to school", very vague (walk or bus or wait for you to drive), and each detailed steps require even detailed actions (composability). So how did you reach the efficiency with only "go to school"? First of all, we have mechanisms to establish conventions -- which is the user maintainable dictionary I was referring to. Second, we have direct feed back -- if the kids didn't move or the school called, we know something went wrong, (then we strengthen or correct the conventions). In the two layer programming structure, both layers are within programmer's access. Programmer try to work at the top layer as we do in our daily life, but we will get signals from lower level compiler, and we can verify the lower level code directly (which is as readable as what you do today -- you are only working at the lower level language today). It is not one or the other, that is how we manage the daily efficiency. Are you a mathematician? How much math do you speak anyway? Even my fellow mathematician convey most of the mathematical meaning in English. Can you imagine mathematicians only write in math (as today's programmer do)? Theorem, at least from the math books on my shelf, are mostly composed in English (more words than math). And even in pure math equations, we make up new symbols (with special meanings under special context, not just operators, what do you think the concept of algebra is) all the time, which is along the same line of vocabulary based programming. If you think I am saying that math can work with English only, then you misunderstood me.

4ydx 12y ago
Of course math works across all languages and I didn't think you were implying that, but using a word in a mathematical context carries a lot of precision with it. It isn't simply a layman's usage. The words don't make the description work, but the math behind it does. This applies to programming languages as well.