From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,5cb36983754f64da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-02-11 18:57:09 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: aek@vib.usr.pu.ru (Alexander Kopilovitch) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language) Date: 11 Feb 2004 18:57:09 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.152.82.65 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1076554629 28686 127.0.0.1 (12 Feb 2004 02:57:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 02:57:09 +0000 (UTC) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5469 Date: 2004-02-11T18:57:09-08:00 List-Id: Robert I. Eachus wrote: > I speak French well enough to get along, in > both Paris and Quebec--although my accent is hardly Parisian. But I > can't fit my thoughts inside the language imposed worldview. So when I > am speaking French I am thinking in English then translating. (I don't > have to go through that step when listening.) I think that there must be some *right French for you*, which you just did not find. First, I believe that you'll agree that Cartesian coordinate system is distinctly French (extremely imperialistic -:) , and at the same time very good thing. Second, take a book - a collection of famous speeches given in court by French advocates near 1900. Third, read "War Pilot" (or "Military Pilot" - I don't know its title in English translation, I read it in Russian) by Saint-Exupery. And finally read memoirs of Grothendieck (it isn't easy to obtain, but possible - in French... there is Russian translation, but perhaps still no English translation). I guess that this package will create a glimpse of worldview, which is certainly French and at the same time acceptable for you. > It has been awhile since > I studied Chinese, long enough that the new transliterations still seem > strange. And I suspect I would feel more at home in Taiwan than > mainland China. I guess that the difference between Traditional and Simplified Chinese would not be the most significant reason for that your feeling -:) > And the French pretend they were on the winning side, rather than losing > early, being occupied for years, and then liberated by the Allies. ;-) Well, I must confess that this situation annoyed me for a couple of decades -:) . But then I realized that taking a physisist's viewpoint, I must admit that the French actually were among winners - this is a fact, a primary fact, and all the theories and reasons are secondary. But nevertheless we need a theory, a reason - so I managed to produce one: despite all their losing and occupation, French appear *ready*, immediately ready to carry all the banners and duties of a winner. I hope you agree that it isn't easy and simple for a war loser, for an recently occupied country to behave correctly as a true winner - and French did that succesfully. So I concluded that there was a sense in admitting French into the company of winners - not because they significantly contributed to the victory, but because they were able to carry a share in post-war matters as a winner. > In fact in French, it is hard to think of French military history as > other than glorious. Do you know a big country, in which own military history isn't glorious? -:) > All this is sort of very off topic for this newsgroup, with one > exception. The languages that we discussed as not imposing world views > seem to be required learning at a young age (usually as a "milk tongue") > to be any good at building compilers and designing programming > languages. (There are some excellent language designers in France, but > they all seem to speak fluent English. So it may be that if French is > your milk tongue you can learn another language later, and still commit > language design.) I have often felt that this was due to some spoken > languages being easily extensible, and others forcing you into another > language if you want to add a new concept. The two extremes seem to be > English and Japanese. I tend to agree, but with one addition: those coming from other languages (which have a "fixed worldview) may convey elements of their "native" worldview to the whole construction, and this may be very important, even critical for overall success. > All popular programming languages seem to have an English heritage. It coudn't be othewise simply because of the weight of American computer industry and American market. > There > have been a few languages from non-English speaking areas. SIMSCRIPT > has a Scandinavian heritage. It is somehow strange that you did not mention Simula-67 here. Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia