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From: hsrender@happy.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Documenting OO Systems
Message-ID: <1991Mar25.145441.1@happy.colorado.edu>
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References: <9103070342.AA07462@.nextserver.cs.stthomas.edu.cs.stthomas.edu ..> <1991Mar22.120946.1@happy.colorado.edu> <299@orbit.gtephx.UUCP>
Date: 25 Mar 91 14:54:40 MDT

In article <299@orbit.gtephx.UUCP>, barriost@gtephx.UUCP (Tim Barrios) writes:
> In article <1991Mar22.120946.1@happy.colorado.edu>, hsrender@happy.colorado.edu writes:
>> After all, which is more like English:
>> 
>> 	ADD 1 to A GIVING B
>> 
>> or 
>> 	B := A + 1
> 
> right answer, wrong question.  we can all think of many
> reasons why English isn't what's desirable here.  a language to most
> accurately represent the problem domain (ie, software design or
> requirements) is what is desired.  then, for most software engineering
> application, the real question becomes which of the following is more
> like engineering:
> 
>   add 1 to a.       english, business
>   a := a + 1;       -- math, engineering, science
>   a++;              // made-up; worrying too much about the underlying target

Your answer raises another question:  why is the second option more readable
than the third?  (I'll ignore the question of which is more like engineering,
because I have no idea how one measures the "engineeringness" of an expression.)
I would postulate that it is because of experience.  Most engineers learn to 
program in some form of block-structured language, so anything that looks
like a block-structured language is immediately recognizable to them.  But
is this a better means of expression?  I recall that at Syracuse they were
teaching some of their intro students to program in Prolog, and they reported
no ensuing problems in later CS courses.  At Indiana and MIT I believe they
teach Scheme to intro people, and both of them seem to produce good CS people.
So, is it simply convention that makes us prefer "a := a + 1" to "a++"?  After
all, I never saw anything even vaguely like "a := a + 1" in any math or
science course, so I can't believe I had any prior familiarity with it.

hal.