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From: rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: What is the origin of `pragma'
Summary: no Latin needed
Message-ID: <15907@vail.ICO.ISC.COM>
Date: 7 Jul 89 15:52:40 GMT
References: <15896@vail.ICO.ISC.COM> <5937@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp, Boulder, CO
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <5937@hubcap.clemson.edu>, billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,) writes:
> >>    Why was the word `pragma' selected?
> > ALGOL 68 has a construct called a "pragmat" with very similar usage. 
>     Nevertheless, it's not a very intuitively appealing keyword;
>     most people learning Ada don't say "Ah, yes, from the Latin..."

Do most people learning Ada not know the (English) word "pragmatic"?!?

(That ought to be good for a flame or two...:-)

>     (or whatever)... rather, it's a counter-intuitive thing to be
>     memorized.

What is counter-intuitive?  At most it's non-intuitive to someone who
doesn't know the word, but certainly a remark directed to the compiler,
concerning not some abstract matter, but a concrete, practical point,
is a "pragmatic remark."  Seems intuitive to me.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com    uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd     (303)449-2870
   ...Simpler is better.