From: Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>
Subject: Re: Examples in Docs, was Re: Escape Sequences in Strings
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 16:20:45 GMT
Date: 2001-01-17T16:20:45+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101170815001.21897-100000@shell5.ba.best.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <942vqr$sd0$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
On Wed, 17 Jan 2001, Robert Dewar wrote:
> In article <942brr$b0t$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > Not a connection, an analogy. With respect to the function
> > of a program, comments are superfluous; with respect to the
> > language definition, examples are superfluous.
>
> I disagree strongly with this analogy.
>
> In the case of a language definition, examples indeed convey
> no information that cannot be derived from the definition
> proper (unless the definition is incomplete). Yes, they may
> be helpful in understanding, but they do not have any
> non-derivable information.
[...snip...]
> Indeed if you write comments that CAN be derived from the code,
> as in:
>
> a := a + 1; -- increment a
>
> then you have written a junk, completely useless comment.
> Indeed I would say that comments like this are what are
> analogous to examples in programming language definitions :-)
I wonder if you learned SML programming from "The Definition of Standard
ML" :-).
Seriously, I'm pretty amazed that anyone can learn to program from a
typical language spec without examples. Do you think it is a learnable
and teachable skill (do you teach your students this?), or is it a
unique quirk?
-- Brian
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2001-01-17 16:20 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 94+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2000-11-15 0:00 Escape Sequences in Strings Jean Cohen
2000-11-15 0:00 ` Preben Randhol
2000-11-15 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Ada Streams usage (was Escape Sequences in Strings) Marc A. Criley
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
[not found] ` <igh81t8b3hdrsc167do6qr0h1joa73c1jr@borpin.co.uk>
2000-11-18 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-18 0:00 ` David Kristola
2000-11-19 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-19 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-20 0:00 ` Brian Orpin
2000-11-20 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-19 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
2000-11-19 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-19 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-11-20 0:00 ` Randy Brukardt
2000-11-21 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
2000-11-21 0:00 ` Randy Brukardt
2000-11-21 1:31 ` Robert Dewar
2000-11-21 1:33 ` Robert Dewar
2000-11-21 0:00 ` Randy Brukardt
2000-11-22 5:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-11-20 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-21 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-11-19 0:00 ` Ted Dennison
2000-11-19 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-11-15 0:00 ` Escape Sequences in Strings John English
2000-11-15 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-11-15 0:00 ` Ehud Lamm
2000-11-16 0:00 ` John English
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Ken Garlington
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
2000-11-16 0:00 ` Keith Thompson
2001-01-12 13:18 ` Andrew Hately
2001-01-12 20:03 ` Keith Thompson
2001-01-18 8:29 ` Lao Xiao Hai
2001-01-18 15:22 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-18 22:43 ` Randy Brukardt
2001-01-21 11:54 ` Dale Stanbrough
2001-01-21 22:35 ` directly accessing DOS screen memory (was: Re: Escape Sequences in Strings) Jeffrey Carter
2001-01-12 19:37 ` Escape Sequences in Strings tmoran
2001-01-13 1:38 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-13 6:48 ` tmoran
2001-01-13 18:36 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-16 3:30 ` Examples in Docs, was " peter_richtmyer
2001-01-16 5:42 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-16 20:44 ` mark_lundquist
2001-01-16 22:43 ` Larry Kilgallen
2001-01-17 15:06 ` mark_lundquist
2001-01-17 2:25 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-17 15:28 ` mark_lundquist
2001-01-17 16:20 ` Brian Rogoff [this message]
2001-01-17 18:04 ` Wayne Lydecker
2001-01-17 19:23 ` BSCrawford
2001-01-18 0:15 ` Jerry Petrey
2001-01-19 0:01 ` tmoran
2001-01-18 3:44 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-18 16:45 ` Brian Rogoff
2001-01-18 19:53 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-18 22:58 ` Georg Bauhaus
2001-01-19 16:40 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-19 7:49 ` Learning methods Anders Wirzenius
2001-01-19 18:57 ` Examples in Docs, was Re: Escape Sequences in Strings mark_lundquist
2001-01-21 12:05 ` Dale Stanbrough
2001-01-21 15:35 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-17 22:10 ` Matthew Woodcraft
2001-01-18 3:52 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-16 16:06 ` Examples in Docs Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
2001-01-16 21:29 ` mark_lundquist
2001-01-18 0:50 ` Randy Brukardt
2001-01-18 16:46 ` mark_lundquist
2001-01-18 17:24 ` J. David Bryan
2001-01-17 2:43 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-17 21:17 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
2001-01-16 20:01 ` Examples in Docs, was Re: Escape Sequences in Strings mark_lundquist
2001-01-17 10:59 ` Peter Richtmyer
2001-01-19 18:55 ` mark_lundquist
2001-01-20 14:24 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-20 14:36 ` Preben Randhol
2001-01-20 15:00 ` Robert Dewar
2001-01-21 11:24 ` Preben Randhol
2001-01-22 14:47 ` Ted Dennison
2001-01-22 20:08 ` Preben Randhol
2001-01-22 20:14 ` Preben Randhol
2001-01-20 19:02 ` Stephen Leake
2001-01-20 19:50 ` Georg Bauhaus
2001-01-21 11:35 ` Preben Randhol
2001-01-22 23:58 ` Mark Lundquist
2001-01-27 1:43 ` Increasing the readability of Ada was RE: Examples in Docs Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
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