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Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 17:56:11 +0100
From: Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>
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Subject: Re: Communications of ACM: Sir, Please Step Away from the ASR-33!
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Date: 2010-12-27T17:56:11+01:00
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On 27.12.10 15:41, Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:
> Michael R wrote:
> 
>> There's a note in November's Communications of the ACM titled "Sir,
>> Please Step Away from the ASR-33!" with the sub-title "To move forward
>> with programming languages we must first break free from the tyranny
>> of ASCII".
>>
>> It's interesting that Ada has already stepped away from ASCII. Many of
>> the test cases for my ZanyBlue.Text localization support library
>> contain non-ASCII source, e.g., a test enumeration with identifiers
>> containing Greek characters:
> 
> This is definitely a small step in the right direction.  But I don't
> think it is anywhere as far at Poul-Henning Kamp would like it to go.  I
> have the impression that as long as our source files are only defined as
> a sequence of characters, we aren't there yet.  I'm a bit scared by the
> thought of a source code being defined both at the file level (for
> compatibility) and as a 2D (3D?) visual structure (for editing and
> inspection).


Two reasons (to which, I think, Kamp briefly hints as "conservative")
why there will never be progress towards a more expressive, traditional
(sic) syntax. "Traditional", I mean, is a way to (a) refer to how
people used to write when they were not yet incapacitated by modern
digital(*) input devices---to an extent that has made the
mistake these devices to be the standard and only means of writing.
"Traditional" can (b) refer to the way syntax was used in Algol,
which had an abstract syntax, a "printable" syntax, and then ways
to type Algol programs such that input corresponded to Algol's syntax
in some implementation defined way.

1) ASCII is a fetish.  Empirical evidence instructs us what the
(equivalents of the) high priests and their following will do
if you don't bow to the fetish.

2) If implementers' personal history includes having been praised
for their clever, simple ASCII based identifier scanning algorithm,
if their customers can be persuaded to think ASCII is good,
why should they admit that the only reason ASCII systems still
work most of the time is the post hoc fallacy?  (And defend
ASCII against any malfunctioning produce as being "caused" by
integration of improperly ASCIIfied software?)

___
(*) hole/no hole in a punched card is digital, too.
(**) the key part of ASCII is that it is a fixed size table.
Its theory is simple, you have learned it when you were
very young...