Re: Beginner's Language?

[danfm@dartmouth.edu (FM)]

Andreas Krennmair <a.krennmair@aon.at> wrote:

>The problem is that Lisp is in no way similar to a natural language. And 
>natural language can be understood easier than some functional, theoretical
>stuff with a unique concept like Lisp.

You've got at least three assumptions there, none of which
I agree with. I don't see why a programming language
should be similar to a natural language (the only sense in
which they are both languages is that they have some form
of grammar) and it takes quite a lot of arrogance to say
that a programming language is harder to understand than a
natural language or that the imperative paradigm is closer
to the natural way of describing things for humans than
the functional paradigm.

Also, Lisp is hardly some functional thereotical stuff
with a unique concept.


>Don't get me wrong, Lisp is a great
>language, and I personally find it quite exciting as four year Pascal and
>two year C/C++ programmer, but it's hardly usable for teaching, because it
>is so unique (well, you _could_ to functional programming in C, but it would
>be considered bad style).

What is *so* unique? Lisp is a label applied to a broad
family of languages, not a single language. That alone
takes away the uniqueness. Furthermore, the functional
paradigm is hardly confined to the Lisp family.


>I currently go to an Austrian school where mostly programming/CS/software
>engineering-related things are taught (it's for 5 years, and you start
>at an age of 14),

Ouch. This is probably a bad idea...


>> > Now look at it. Could a neophite with literally *zero*
>> > experience in programming computers read it and stand a chance of
>> > understanding what it does or how it does it?
>>  
>>  yes, yes 
>for my comment, see above. Lisp has hardly anything in common with natural
>languages. Or could you express "My girlfriend's name is Suzy and her age
>is 17" as readable as this in Lisp:
>$girlfriend{'name'} = "Suzy";
>$girlfriend{'age'} = 17;

Except that this is completely wrong. Your perl statements
are imperative, not descriptive or even declarative. At
least most languages in the Lisp family will let you write
something close to:

(with (she (my girlfriend))
  (be (of name she) "Suzy")
  (be (of age she) 17))

Of course what this is supposed to mean is complete up to
the programmer.


That's aside from the fact that you chose an arbitrary
sentence that isn't at all representative of natural
languages. For a better exercise, take a few paragraphs
from a book or better yet, record a phone conversation or
radio broadcasts and come up with a formal notation that
could be used to capture their meaning.



>Of course, this is not the best example, since Perl has a syntax that is
>not the optimum for beginners.

Perl's syntax is the closest thing I've seen to a natural
syntax in a programming language.



Dan.


-- 
Q:      What's a WASP's idea of open-mindedness?
A:      Dating a Canadian.