Transcript staying English-like [was Re: Why isn't Rev more popular?]

[graham samuel]

On  Fri, 02 Dec 2005 17:50:53 -0800, Scott Rossi  
<scott at tactilemedia.com> wrote:

> [...]
>
> but still, the point is that verbose syntax helps in my situation.   
> So I'll
> continue to support its use.

Earlier, Scott had written

> I don't know, Charles.  Being a design-as-a-first-language,
> programming-as-a-second-language person, it's *because* of  
> TransScript's
> English like syntax that I can get anywhere in the environment.

Just want to say that I come from the opposite end to Scott, since  
I'm a programmer from further back than you can imagine (probably)  
and I started off practically programming in binary (really it was  
octal, but there you go). In those days the programmer had to  
translate his ideas into a very awkward, obscure and bug-inducing  
language, and it was a pain. Mistakes were rife,  productivity was  
low, and it just wasn't enough fun. As a result, I have been in  
favour of every advance towards clarity and 'natural language-like'  
programming that has occurred since, although I am well aware that  
"English-like" is not and never will be, English. Anyway X-talk gets  
my vote every time.

OTOH I entirely agree with those sounding a note of caution about  
extending X-talk: certainly it should happen, but slowly and with a  
great deal of consideration of the pros and cons. I believe there are  
other lists for this kind of discussion.

Graham

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Graham Samuel / The Living Fossil Co. / UK and France