This was from a /. posting I felt like saving for posterity's sake.
From the FA:
"""
There are other, smaller options like TCC that is a complete C compiler, but it's too geared to 386+ and Linux to be a good playground. Other open-source C compilers tend to be variations of Small C that, while understandable, don't implement the entire language.
"""
I think that was the entire point. We don't implement the entirety of the English language every day here where I live or in British universities for that matter and we're quite understandable. It might be different if to survive parsing by the listener not to mention quality review by the head of your department, that you had to squeeze in words like obsequious, vituperation, or Charles Schultz' favorite antidisestablishmentarianism.
Except... in programming it is inevitably that the words aren't big and things may reduce to cryptic things like () and ++ which kills the understandability. So sad that something so easily read as Dartmouth standard BASIC should be tossed aside in favor of things that make you want to beat on an IBM Selectric at random to see if it produces a legal string of Perl code.
Actually, chances are that it would and would win the code obfuscation contests, and if submitted to congress mistaken for the EPA's next budget and probably result in ten dozen public deconstruction readings in the local colleges finally being pontificated on in the editorial pages of the New York Post before being sued by Creators Syndicate for infringing on the IP of Johnny Hart as shamelessly stealing the conveyance of comic strip swearing, with three dupe postings in the YRO section of Slashdot.
All because we insist on languages that must be implemented in their entirety to get anything done but are as non-understandable as an obsequious and vituperative antidisestablishmentarian.
--
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Maxims, rules of thumb and other observations on human cognition and sociocultural affectations
This will be added to on an irregular basis...
- What is said to humans directly is received with skepticism and considered with dubiousness while that which is heard in passing, especially that which most conforms to their mentality or prejudices, is readily believed.
- Humans have a certain cognitive latency between exposure to new information or experiences and the ability to think dispassionately and intellectually about it.
- Humans have a certain cognitive spectrum starting with the moment of exposure to new information or experiences and ending with some point at which the thing is effectively "in the past" for them.
- This cognitive spectrum is linked to the emotional process often referred to as shock, anger, denial and acceptance.
- The more and faster information or experiences are presented to people and the closer the quarters and the lesser the distance between people, the more their early reactions in the passionate emotional stage are reflected back to them in the manner of responses to those reactions from others in light of those responses.
- The more outrages which are suffered without sufficient time to allow emotional bleed-off, the farther the bar for subsequent reaction and outrage are pushed, and the more further events must progress before reaction and outrage.
- It is possible for serious detriments to eventually sit below this threshold for long enough for their damaging effects to build and multiply until their entire society undergoes some reactive convulsion.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Vanity, but it's my blog...
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