Article:		Technologies to Watch: A Look at Four That May Challenge Java’s Development Dominance
Subject:		Not maintainable or english
Date:		2005-10-21 09:11:50
From:		greg_barton
Response to: Not maintainable or english
To your example, how about: use the red and yellow bowls for ketchup and mustard. In English, strictly speaking, this is ambiguous. Can I use a yellow bowl for ketchup? Maybe. If you say, "You didn't understand..." I just come back with, "Well, you said I could use red and yellow bowls for both ketchup and mustard." You say, "I didn't mean BOTH!" And I say, "Well, why did't you say so?" Anyway, I don't see the appeal for making a programming language more like English. English must be one of the least precise languages on the planet. That's great for rhetoric, poetry, and prose, but not for programming. I see nothing wrong with using a few more lines to get your point across as precisely as possible.

Showing messages 1 through 2 of 2.

• Not maintainable or english
  2005-11-01 17:30:19  kenliu [Reply | View]
  
  
  "Anyway, I don't see the appeal for making a programming language more like English."
  
  I have to agree with this sentiment. COBOL anyone?
  
  I've seen the "Englishness" of ruby (and Rails) mentioned a in various places as a Good Thing, but isn't this sort of a narrow view to be taking in today's world? Sure, English is still the lingua franca of the computing world, but surely all those native Hindi and Chinese speakers don't find English-like grammar to be nearly so intuitive.
  
  It's interesting to note in this context that ruby was designed by a Japanese guy. Good thing it didn't come out looking like Engrish ;)

• Not maintainable or english
  2005-10-24 06:56:44  Bruce A. Tate | [Reply | View]
  
  
  Then red and yellow bowls for ketchup and mustard, respectively. Parallel assignments are useful here because you're eliminating the need for a temporary variable, and thus quite useful. To me, it's more expressive and elegant.