Re: [OT] interesting reason why a language is considered good

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:42:57 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> On 17.04.12 09:34, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>> On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:48:15 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>> 
>>> On 16.04.12 20:00, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>>>
>>>> You asked for examples of programs allegedly suffering from generality of
>>>> the word "when", here is one:
>>>
>>> Actually I asked for programs that profit from generality of words
>>> like "when" used as identifiers.
>> 
>> If you want to go that way, then I will ask you to show such programs for
>> "why", "whose" etc. It always works (does not, actually) in both ways.
> 
> Same thing, I'll be happy if you have a list of convincing length
> showing programs that profit from "when", or "why", or "whose" in
> the same way;

Not required. Your argument is already wrong per Modus tollens.

>>>>     case Alignment is
>>>>         when Left =>  ...;
>>>>         when Right =>  ...;
>>>>         when Middle =>  ...;
>>>>     end case;
>>>
>>> What's the pain?
>> 
>> Yes, what pain? Why this program didn't suffered from using the dreadful
>> "when"?
> 
> "When" (like "at", or "from", or "why") is a generic, unspecific word
> that serves a purpose well, namely insofar as it is applicable to all
> kinds of programs.

You repeated that many times. According to you practically any Ada program
is pain. Congratulations.

>>> I have tried to explain that generic identifiers do not inform about
>>> specific things.
>> 
>> And I answered that this does not make them *reserved*.
> 
> Who cares? Making words reserved has nothing to do with the matter.
> It is all about the effects of making them *unreserved*.

not reserved = unreserved.

>>> A graphical terminal on site? Wow!  I am used to SSH.
>> 
>> http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming  +  putty
> 
> X11? Great. BTW, a fancy IDE will not convince me that the
> language's syntax should be changed in favor of appearance aided
> by a massively error checking source code editor.

There is no need to change language syntax in order to remove at least half
of reserved words, because it is not syntax (e.g. having to extra look
ahead) that motivated the choice for most of them. 

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de