From: "Nick Roberts" <Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com>
Subject: Re: Distinguishing type names from other identifiers
Date: 1998/01/26
Date: 1998-01-26T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <01bd2aa1$e1b86020$34fe82c1@xhv46.dial.pipex.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: Pine.BSF.3.96.980125151733.15507A-100000@shell5.ba.best.com
Original BASIC (remember Kemeny and Kurtz?) used the $ sign to distinguish
a string identifier from a numeric one. Microsoft (et al) BASIC added %
for integers, ! for single-precision floating-point, and # for
double-precision.
I should imagine that in 50 years' time, computers will mostly be
programmed in (spoken) natural language, using heuristic artificial
intelligence techiniques to 'home in' on the required functionality.
'Computers' by then will, I would guess, either be as small as a
credit-card, and worn in the top-pocket (where they can speak and be spoken
to by the wearer), or large and walking around.
--
Nick Roberts
Croydon, UK
Proprietor, ThoughtWing Software; Independent Software Development
Consultant
* Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com * Voicemail & Fax +44 181-405 1124 *
*** Always game for a verbal joust (usually as the turkey) ***
Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote in article
<Pine.BSF.3.96.980125151733.15507A-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>...
> On 25 Jan 1998 tmoran@bix.com wrote:
>
> > It's somewhat odd, actually, that most computer languages use only
word
> > order (counting punctuation symbols as words) for parsing and don't
> > use spelling/prefix/suffix changes to the words themselves as
grammatical
> > indicators. I wonder if that will still be the case in 50 years?
>
> (Early) Fortran is one. The Scheme community uses a convention of "!" as
a
> suffix for side-effecting functions, and "?" for queries. Some other
Lisps
> adopt a <Typename> convention to distinguish types. OCaml also has some
> capitalization rules for various entities.
[...]
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1998-01-26 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 45+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1998-01-25 0:00 Distinguishing type names from other identifiers tmoran
1998-01-25 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-26 0:00 ` Nick Roberts [this message]
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1998-01-14 0:00 tmoran
1998-01-14 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-14 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-14 0:00 ` nabbasi
1998-01-15 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-13 0:00 Adam Beneschan
1998-01-14 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-15 0:00 ` Michael F Brenner
1998-01-15 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1998-01-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-16 0:00 ` Michael F Brenner
1998-01-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-16 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-17 0:00 ` nabbasi
1998-01-18 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-21 0:00 ` Philip Brashear
1998-01-20 0:00 ` Benoit Jauvin-Girard
1998-01-20 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-10 0:00 Two simple language questions (plural types) Matthew Heaney
1998-01-12 0:00 ` Anonymous
1998-01-12 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-12 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-13 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-13 0:00 ` Distinguishing type names from other identifiers Nick Roberts
1998-01-13 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-14 0:00 ` Stephen Leake
1998-01-24 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-15 0:00 ` Anonymous
1998-01-24 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-24 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
1998-01-25 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-24 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
1998-01-15 0:00 ` Aaro Koskinen
1998-01-17 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
1998-01-17 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
1998-01-25 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-25 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
[not found] ` <n5rs5FAStOz0Ew2+@dowie-cs.demon.co.uk>
1998-01-26 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-27 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
1998-01-27 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-27 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-28 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-28 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-29 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-30 0:00 ` Mats Weber
1998-01-28 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
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