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From: dgil@pa.reuter.COM (Dave Gillett)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.psychology,comp.cog-eng,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Computer Languages and the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis
Message-ID: <351@saxony.pa.reuter.COM>
Date: 23 Aug 90 23:41:28 GMT
References: <5137@munnari.oz.au> <11606@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
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In <11606@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>The lesson of pseudocode (the use
>of a structured form of natural language in system specification)
>is that skill at expressing algorithms may not be tied to knowledge
>of ANY programming language whatsoever.  This is a theme harped on
>by Dijkstra: in a recent note (DIJK89) he laments the failure of
>schools to teach the noncomputer language of mathematics, which
>would provide an excellent pseudocode, he feels, even for business
>problems.

In the current issue of Computer Language magazine, there is a letter from
Robert Bernecky in which he laments the use of pseudocode as completely
inadequate for the task.

He writes from a perspective of close familiarity with APL, which was in
fact developed to express and teach mathematical concepts (it solves several
serious deficiencies of "standard" mathematical notation), and only
secondarily to be executable.  But in recent years, Ken Iverson has been
exploring the use of microcomputer implementations of APL as a tool for
teaching mathematics at a high-school/freshman level, and finds that the
opportunity to provide each student with a tireless native speaker of the
language -- who will respond to any well-formed statement and diagnose any
statement that is not well-formed -- achieves excellent results.

I believe that he may have described some of his recent work at APL 89:
Language as a Tool of Thought....

By the way... Dijkstra described APL as "a mistake, carried through to
perfection."
                                            Dave