Re: sharp ß and ss in Ada keywords like AC CESS

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:18:31 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> On 13.10.11 15:25, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>> It refers to "alphabets" and "spellings". Why should
>> anybody care about them?
> 
> Many German programmers *do* care about them.

See below.

>> 9 and 2 are not letters.
> 
> M, C, and D, in this hypothetical examples, are digits,

They are not. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_Forms

> IOW, there is a single "alphabet" of digits, other digits
> will not be acceptable when forming numeric literals.
> 
> I think this is reasonable.

Why do you think so? It does not make any sense either from the standpoint
of a particular language (Latin and modern numerals are not the only
existing systems). Neither it has any sense according to Unicode, which has
Roman numerals, fractions, superscript and subscript numerals. If Ada
sincerely wanted to be Unicode the following should be legal:

   Half : constant Float := ½;

BTW, Hebrew which has its own numerals, widely used in mathematics for
cardinal numbers (e.g.  aleph-0 which happily mixes two different numeral
systems!), Hebrew is right to left. So many Israeli programmers might wish
Ada identifiers *starting* with digits rather than ending by them. Why
ß-rules should have preference?

>>> "the Swiss model (which is without ß) is working."
>> 
>> I bet 90% of Ada users could not care less.
> 
> It will be interesting to learn what your bet is thus why
> - 90% will not care

Because at least 90% never heard about ß and never will.

>>> 1) I /= І, since they are from "alphabets" that real people
>>>    think are different.
>> 
>> Show me one, who thinks they are different without hexadecimal editor. 
> 
> My terminal, as I said, shows the difference between I and І very
> clearly.

You have no font installed. Is it rendered as a box? My computer shows no
difference in Times New Roman.

> Any compiler shows they are different identifiers.

Rather that showing them same.

> Starting to feel like a broken record, the same goes for ASCII
> l, 1, i, I.

These are clearly different in any fixed size font. Anyway even if true,
this cannot serve in favor of multiplying homographs. Two wrongs do not
make one right.

>>> "Mass" has four Latin characters, "Maß" has three,
>> 
>> So why are they equivalent?
> 
> Because people say, in large numbers, that they are equivalent.

This requires a proof.

People in large numbers believe in various things, most of which are false.
But find anyone who would agree with you that:

   Mass_Spectrograph = Maß_Spectrograph

>>>> If "Latin" does not mean Latin, then you need yet another nonsensical rule
>>>> to redefine it.
>>>
>>> "Latin" is here meant to refer to the general thing.
>>> "Latin characters used in Europe" is pretty clear,
>> 
>> Does this include Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria?
> 
> This should be clear from the original list; also
> "Latin characters used in Europe" is pretty clear
> to anyone not trying to twist things.

How is it clear? Greece has not been expelled from the eurozone and Cyprus
will stay... (:-))

>>> Declaring simple unions of sections from Unicode is easy,
>>> and consistent.
>> 
>> Again, what is the rationale?
> 
> To reduce complexity of identifiers, and to make reading easier.

Like I /= І rule?

>>> but programmers see characters
>>> if you ask them.
>> 
>> Nope, it is a physiological fact that people see glyphs.
> 
> A)  "It's the 3rd character from the right".
> 
> B)  "It's the 3rd glyph from the right".
> 
> How likely is it that any real programmer will say sentence
> B, and not A?

That does not change the fact. The programmer would also say that sun is
"rising" and program is full of "bugs".

People see glyphs because they are visual representations of characters or
their parts. You need very good arguments why the programming language is
constructed so, that two different programs have same visual representation
in standard text editors.

>>>> You cannot
>>>> safely recognize alphabet looking at a single word. 
>>>
>>> I am looking at programs, not at single words.
>> 
>> Does this mean that a program may not use several alphabets?
> 
> Of course not, as stated, this applies to simple names.
> A simple name alone is not a program, and has little meaning.

Thus we return back to the point that the alphabet cannot be identified.

>> I don't care about
>> Swiss model, I do about separate compilation. I don't want the legality of
>> components (tested, verified, validated) be randomly dependent on other
>> parts by mere placing them into one project.
> 
> We could never reuse anything but Ada 83 units: The legality
> of components would have to be re-established under the rules
> of more recent Adas.

Are you serious? Some really vital things are not even considered due to
sacred compatibility and you are proposing to forget about that in favor of
silly ß=ss?

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de