variable xref

[Mark Wieder]

On 03/30/2018 08:56 AM, Mark Waddingham via use-livecode wrote:

> I'd suggest that the language doesn't matter - so 'natural language like' would perhaps be a better term but even then is that really what we mean?

A good question to ask here might be "what are the pain points of the 
language as it now exists?"

Since I always use strict variable checking I don't have to worry about 
unquoted literals because the compiler will always give me an error. For 
me the pain of having to put quotes around literals is muchly offset by 
the security of having the compiler keep me out of trouble. Mostly. YMMV.

On the other hand, there are certain keywords that I think really should 
be constants and not unquoted literals. I find it a pain to have to put 
quotes around color names. If I want to set a text color to black, I 
find it awkward to have to set it to "black".

> So we are perhaps talking about constructing language(s) which allows a computer to be instructed more like we would a human - i.e. not having to define every single thing in mind numbing detail, knowing that the receiver has enough competence and knowledge to infer and fill in the gaps correctly and then carrying out those actions with a high degree of accuracy (although computers are probably already better for accuracy in many domains - they just need their hand held throughout!) or at least have the ability to shout when things really don't 'compute'. In this vein I'm not sure syntax is so important.

I'm still not ready to have computers drive cars.
-- 
  Mark Wieder
  ahsoftware at gmail.com