Lambda the Ultimate

Ehud Lamm - Lingua::Romana::Perligata blueArrow
3/9/2002; 10:50:55 AM (reads: 1865, responses: 4)

Oleg - Natural and programming languages: Perl & German or Latin blueArrow
3/10/2002; 3:47:08 PM (reads: 1063, responses: 2)

Actually there is a particular connection between Perl sentences and the corresponding German sentences. Perl 'articles' ,ドル @ and % seem to play the same role as German articles das, der, die. Moreover, like German articles, Perl articles change with cases.

Perl: $a = 1;
German: Das A ist 1.
 
Perl: $a = $b;
German: Das A ist das B.
 
written: @a = (1,2,$b);
spoken: Die A sind 1, 2 und das B.
 
written: $c = $a[1];
spoken: Das C ist das erste Element der A.
 
written: @d = @a[1,2];
pronounced: Die D sind die ersten und zweiten Elemente der A.

Note the correspondence between das (Nominative sing. Neutrum) and $, and die (Nominative plural) and @. As you see, Perligata wasn't such a great deal. I believe Perl was designed with articles and contexts in mind (After all, Larry Wall was a linguist).

Kevin Kelleher - Re: Natural and programming languages: Perl & German or Latin blueArrow
3/11/2002; 10:48:43 AM (reads: 1102, responses: 1)

A more logical choice for a programming/interface language is Lojban, the logical language. This is, in fact, one of its intended uses. It is unambiguous but has great expressive power. The syntax (according to a FAQ "is founded on first-order predicate logic", and for that reason assignment of values, set theory, causual and incidental relations, and self-referential elements are built into the language.

Ehud Lamm - Re: Natural and programming languages: Perl & German or Latin blueArrow
3/11/2002; 10:55:17 AM (reads: 1182, responses: 0)

assignment of values...

Now obviosuly this is something you don't want in a programming languages

Kevin Kelleher - Re: Lingua::Romana::Perligata blueArrow
3/11/2002; 11:56:51 AM (reads: 998, responses: 0)

Clearly what is wanted is a natural language that is properly tail-recursive.