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Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:49:58 +0200
From: Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>
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Subject: Re: Elaborate_All on child package
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Date: 2011-09-07T12:49:58+02:00
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On 07.09.11 07:03, AdaMagica wrote:

> (I gather, with all the syntax and semantics discussions in this
> group, we would have at least 100 different Adas if we were to start
> from scratch.)

(Yet, hardly anyone bothers to arrive at the necessary rationality,
attention, and consistency when it comes to syntax: there are few
attempts at establishing a comprehensive set of criteria for judging
the qualities of different syntaxes. So as to have something before
considering the technical effects, viz. parsers.
 The discussions show that "scientists", engineers, and mathematicians
are, with a gesture, "skeptical of" (stunningly resistant to)
looking at the effects of their preferred form of expression.
Effects that form is bound to have in the hands and eyes of others.
 This is at odds with how scientific people are expected to work.
 From facts.
Where facts refers to syntax as a tool that functions, more or less,
in the hands of programmers, and programs' readers in particular.
You would expect scientists to use scientific methods in order
to arrive at criteria. Look at the data. Find meaning in the
data. Create model simulations of interpretations of data.
Perform experiments. But do all this with data collected about
syntax? No, they would not just lack experience in doing this, they
also refuse, it seems, to have their preferences judged by tests.
 A notable exception was when someone studied real data (coding
rules). Following scientific tradition, he first arrived at a
classification, categories A and B. Roughly, A is typographical
rules and B is rules concerning parts of a language that have
somehow shown to be a source of errors. He has produced results
that influence safety critical embedded systems programming
in C, as far as I can tell ...)