Re: :-) A Brand-New Language! :-)

[sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de (Georg Bauhaus)]

Marc A. Criley (marc.a.criley@lmco.com) wrote:

: From time to time I have idly thought about recasting the Ada syntax
: into a C++/Java style.  
: Then float an IPO, sit back, and
: watch it take the world by storm.
: Well, it's a daydream anyway...   :-)

Given how vivid and engaged discussions become when syntax is
involved (cf. colour/color etc. in this thread),  this is a major
issue wrt marketing, which is largely controlled by group
norms/fashions/..., not only rational judgement (if that exists
at all). Why else should there be, as recruiting people seem to think,
a large number of "experienced"
C<++> 98! programmers, (see M.D.Condic in this thread), when there aren't?

As an illustration, over here in Germany a few million kids in
the north will have to learn "old orthography" rules due to the
efforts of a small group of propagandists (term justified(*)) to
not adopt the new rules, adopted recently by everyone else.
The new rules were a result of a years
lasting standardisation effort including representatives from
Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. It is a compromise. Now think
of the children (and foreigners) having to learn how to write
German /old style for Schleswig-Holstein (the north west) and
/new style for everywhere else (two sets of schoolbooks, official
documents, ...).  More recent attempts to achieve the same goal
(not adopting) in other areas after the adoption have failed.

More often than not it turnes out that the most engaged
disputants have not familiarized them with the goals.
And they never answer questions like
- where and when is correct orthography essential/useful/unimportant?
- what exactely *are* the rules?
- what do those people say who have to learn to write the language?
Sounds familiar?

(*) One "argument" that slipped most journalists' attention was
"estimating" the number of changes per page including the
relatively frequent &szlig; |--> ss transition. The argument had
"more than thousand little changes on a page" in it --now how
many words per page are there, in a novel,say?  A factor of 10
just slippd...

- Georg Bauhaus