ON SYNTACTIC PARSIMONY IN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES Um. Your analogy to ordinary lan

ON SYNTACTIC PARSIMONY IN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

Um. Your analogy to ordinary language is good. But you overstate the case.

Given the history of the evolution of languages:

(a) It is extremely unlikely that the arrow syntax will survive in current form;

(b) it is not more readable and this has been demonstrated in every (of the hundred or so I’ve had to learn) language over the past five decades.

And lastly (c), react/virtual DOM is a good idea, but it is terribly fragile, and the entire js architecture it depends upon is terribly fragile, and we should assume that the browser-as-OS and JS-as-language-of-browsers, will evolve as all other languages have evolved.

Why? because we are all working on hacks to compensate for the slow development of browsers and js language because of standards committees.

Meaning, the correct answer is closer to your original analogy: programing is simply a more operational language than we speak with in less operational and more experiential ordinary language, and as such the written words in both ordinary and operational language should be parsimonious without introducing opportunity for misinterpretation.

Great code is readable, but does not require interpretation. Meaning it is parsimonious but not obscure,

I have seen generation after generation of guys make the same claims, always to the same ends.

THere is no difference between natural language and operational language, including the grammar and syntax other than programming langauges, by virtue of operational language, must consist of informationally complete statements, and natural languages can rely upon the audience using ‘guesses’ to fill in the informational gaps.

Programming is communication with another person: everyone that follows you, using the limited vocabulary of the machine and its inability to infer missing information.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute