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From: mikeb@coho.ee.ubc.ca (Mike Bolotski)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: The Universal Language (Was Re: Efficient Fortran)
Message-ID: <1356@fs1.ee.ubc.ca>
Date: 5 Aug 90 22:44:33 GMT
References: <23893@megaron.cs.arizona.edu>
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In article <23893@megaron.cs.arizona.edu>, gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman) writes:
> Only ridiculous if you have a limited imagination.  It is perfectly
> plausible that it is possible to design a ``universal'' language of
> some sort, that makes it unnecessary to use other languages.  Such a

This is an interesting claim.  Of course, it is difficult to dispute
statements that begin with "it is plausible", but I will attempt to do so.

For one, I haven't seen any supporting arguments for the possibility
existence of the universal language (handwaving excluded).

Here is a counterargument.  Workers in different fields solve problems
using entirely different languages.  Mathematics is one such language,
and it includes many "sublanguages" -- continuous variable notation,
matrix notation, logic, etc.   Circuit diagrams are another language.
English, with terms specialized to each area,  is another language, used 
almost exclusively in non-technical fields.

A "universal" programming language is in a sense equivalent to the claim
that a single language is appropriate for all areas of study.  

> language will probably not be small, and it may be divided into many
> sublanguages, each appropriate for different problems, but there could
> be a unifying framework and user interface.  In fact a lot of current

This is a cop-out.  If the language is defined to be English, then all
currently existing languages are only sublanguages in a common framework.
A language with a sufficient amount of sufficiently different "sublanguages"
cannot be said to be a language.  

> research is going into the search for such a language, although the
> researchers don't generally think of their work in this way.

I should hope that the researchers don't think of their work that way.
They would probably change research areas.  By the way, whose work
do you consider falling into this category?

> for your problem.  To suggest that the issue has been decided is a
> little premature to say the least.

These days, the suggestion that any issue has been decided is premature.
One can point to the various speed levels  that were "proven" to be
non-exceedable by humans, for example

On the other hand, the excuse of "this hasn't been decided yet" gets
vacuous rather rapidly without any supported counterarguments.
 
--
Mike Bolotski           VLSI Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering
mikeb@salmon.ee.ubc.ca  University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada 


Mike Bolotski           VLSI Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering
mikeb@salmon.ee.ubc.ca  University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada