counter++ versus "add 1 to counter"

Mark Wieder mwieder at ahsoftware.net
Sun Mar 21 13:28:59 EST 2004


A.C.T.-

Sunday, March 21, 2004, 10:01:16 AM, you wrote:

ACT> mean this "serious", it's just a sample to make you understand that
ACT> "human language" is NOT "programming language". It simply isn't true

This is quite true. Any programming language is a shim between human
thought processes and the ones and zeros the CPU can handle. It's not
correct to think of Transcript as a "human language" - it's just
another syntax to get the computer to do what you want it to do.

Learning a new programming language is like learning a new human
language - you have to deal with a new vocabulary and new syntax
rules. You're not going to get Transcript to be C any more than you're
going to get Chinese to be German. Would you make the case that German
is clearer than Chinese because you know the synax already?

ACT> understand the specific restrictions of Transcript-English. She would
ACT> always be puzzled whether Transcript would UNDERSTAND what she tries to
ACT> express (in English), wheras using standard coding phrases are clear,
ACT> once you learned them "as words" - like "counter++".

Again, Transcript isn't a human language or a human, it doesn't
"understand" anything. Let's not get too anthropomorphic here.

ACT> The question here was whether "add 1 to counter" is clearer than 
ACT> "counter++". It is NOT, except for a couple of million people speaking
ACT> English. Ask a Chinese which one is clearer - I guess, if she doesn't

Maybe, but your statement that "counter++" is "clear and there's no
doubt about what is meant" is no more or less true than the statement
that "add 1 to counter" is perfectly clear. If your daughter were used
to coding in Transcript she would have to make the same mental jump to
deal with the "counter++" syntax.

I *do* think either of these syntaxes is clearer than forth's

counter 1 +

but, again, it's a matter of comfortability with the programming
syntax you have to deal with. And forth is certainly much closer to
the way the CPU is handling the actual information, to get back to
your analogy with machine code.

-- 
-Mark Wieder
 mwieder at ahsoftware.net



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