[SCL] Re: quest for more core syntax

[Jon Awbrey]

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i heartily concur with this suggestion!

you might even say i jump at the chance.

and if we could take this quantum leap,
well, forward, at least the way of all
logical positronicists, then might we
not also follow the lead, back to the
future, retrogradually in the case of
positive logicists, of following what
Backus in his Functional Programming,
McCarthy in his M-Expressiveness, and
Wirth in his Modula 1, 2, 3, Infinity,
not to mention several generations of
advanced wits since that time have all
suggested that we do, to wit, adhering
to a purely functional, approximately
modular, and well-structured syntax
in all we do, whether it be tasks
of a declarative or a procedural
character that we have to do?

it cdr happened a whole lot sooner, of course,
but better belated than ever, i'm ever saying.

and if you need sugar, save it for your serial.

backus to the future ...

jon awbrey

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Tanel Tammet wrote:
> 
> pat hayes wrote:
> 
> > > I'd personally prefer prefix notation, not KIF (even though I am a
> > > devoted Scheme hacker) since there are FAR more people accustomed to
> > > prefix notation when compared to people who are used to s-expressions.
> > > I'd guess at least one, probably two magnitudes.
> >
> > Yes, that was my original motivation for the infix syntax.  I keep going
> > back and forth on this issue, there really is not a good single solution.
> > The examples do definitely read more easily in a 'conventional' notation;
> > but the KIF-style syntax has clear advantages for machine use and ease of
> > stating the translations and correspondence to the abstract syntax.
> 
> Pure functional prefix syntax like forall((x,y),and(lighter(x,y),
> or(dog(x),cat(x))) or even forall(x,forall(y,and(lighter(x,y),
> or(dog(x),cat(x))))) is probably a usable compromise here.
> 
> It is both common and easily parsable (not really much harder than
> S-expression syntax). Just avoid infix and any defaults and keep
> commas as separators (infix makes parsing much harder,
> defaults even more so, lack of commas is uncommon).
> 
> I am not arguing actively for pure prefix syntax though --
> IMHO KIF is survivable - just that prefix is much more
> common, as we all know.
> 
> Regards,
> Tanel

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http://www.cs.bsu.edu/homepages/mighty/history.html
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