From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Rusi Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: if vs. when vs. and: style question Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2015 19:41:58 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <7e8ddf8f-163a-4d16-9ce2-25b0cb3f35aa@googlegroups.com> References: <87sicvwckx.fsf@wmi.amu.edu.pl> <87wq27yvqg.fsf@debian.uxu> <8d531e99-7260-4263-ac99-09c6871e2708@googlegroups.com> <87vbhq53lf.fsf@debian.uxu> <87a8z23p23.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <87lhilx0cf.fsf@debian.uxu> <87twx9360u.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <0d1d19ab-06e9-462d-8867-9a49b1e232d3@googlegroups.com> <87pp7x2jav.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <87d23s4nt4.fsf@debian.uxu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1427597127 22994 80.91.229.3 (29 Mar 2015 02:45:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2015 02:45:27 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Mar 29 04:45:25 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Yc3E0-0007Yl-9h for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 29 Mar 2015 04:45:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55845 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Yc3Dz-0000L9-Hy for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 28 Mar 2015 22:45:19 -0400 X-Received: by 10.50.254.161 with SMTP id aj1mr7788149igd.6.1427596919233; Sat, 28 Mar 2015 19:41:59 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.51.17.10 with SMTP id ga10mr96760igd.6.1427596919206; Sat, 28 Mar 2015 19:41:59 -0700 (PDT) Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!h15no586579igd.0!news-out.google.com!db6ni692igc.0!nntp.google.com!h15no344597igd.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help In-Reply-To: <87d23s4nt4.fsf@debian.uxu> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=117.195.39.12; posting-account=mBpa7woAAAAGLEWUUKpmbxm-Quu5D8ui Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 117.195.39.12 User-Agent: G2/1.0 Injection-Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2015 02:41:59 +0000 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:211139 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:103421 Archived-At: On Sunday, March 29, 2015 at 6:29:45 AM UTC+5:30, Emanuel Berg wrote: > "Pascal J. Bourguignon"=20 > > The success of lisp and unix over the decades shows > > that simplier tools win on the long term. > > Contrarily to graphic programming languages (such as > > UML) or other "experiments", or more complex > > systems, object-based or other (LispMachines), which > > will eventually break and be forgotten by most and > > regretted by few). >=20 > One hundred percent correct! All those silly tools are > intended so the programmer can be replaced by people > who cannot program. So far that hasn't happen - and > I am confident it never will. Its important to distinguish and orthogonalize two aspects: 1. Linearity 2. Charset Starting from Turing's paper where he 'created' his machine, the big jump from normal math to Turing-math (which would later become CS) was linearity= . Turing asks us to imagine a mathematician doing a computation on paper (shortform compute-er!) and then goes on to show that the paper can be=20 linearized into a 'tape'. This linearity persists today in our computers whose memories are linear sequences of bytes numbered 0 to 4G (or whatever). Likewise files are sequences of bytes. Then, because we humans dont like linearity too much, we have devices like - emacs that non-linearizes a file on disk into a 2-D display - file-systems that non-linearize a block into a file-system - and so on. So html for example non-linearizes a linear text. Unicode (charset in general) doesn't (ok there's bidi codes but ignoring th= at). Things like UML are difficult and problematic because of non-linearity not = charset. There are at least half-a-dozen programming languages and systems I can thi= nk of that are already unicode-capable: >From venerable to cutting-edge: APL, Appletalk, Fortress, Erlang, Python, Julia, Haskell, Agda, And even Elisp! *** Welcome to IELM *** Type (describe-mode) for help. ELISP> (setq =CE=B1 1 =CE=B2 2 =CE=B3 3) 3 (#o3, #x3, ?\C-c) ELISP> (list =CE=B1 =CE=B2 =CE=B3) (1 2 3) ELISP>=20 How much costly was that =CE=B1 to type than alpha?? One backslash!! Add to that the fact that programs are read - 10 times more than written during development - 100 times more during maintenance