Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!linac!att!ucbvax!UTRCGW.UTC.COM!RAYBRO%HOLON
From: RAYBRO%HOLON@UTRCGW.UTC.COM ("William R Brohinsky", ay)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: THEN controversy
Message-ID: <9106201307.AA23386@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 19 Jun 91 13:43:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: "William R(ay) Brohinsky" <RAYBRO%HOLON%UTRCGW.UTC.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV>
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 29

I'm sorry, but I've lost my taste for this discussion. This is what
did it to me:

I am teaching a course in C. (Two of them, actually, and this happened
after the thursday class, which is six lessons behind the tuesday class).
I was accosted after the first `overview' class by one of the matrons
from our library, who demanded of me whether boolean IF/THENs could
be related to the IF/THENs of philosophical logic.

I've never liked philosophical logic, primarily because it is not logical.
(Please, save the flames, this is IMHO!) I spent more time (almost half
an hour) trying to convince this woman to abandon her agenda and accept
that programming languages are utterly uninterested in philosophy (although
programmers themselves may be more than interested) and that a
simple acceptance of Boolean tables as a guide will get her through the
course just fine, thank you.

This is the kind of religious discussion that brookes no form of humor,
and I can't deal with that.

As for our discussion of THEN, and it's place alongside the price of
tea in China as a Really Hot Item, maybe I'm getting oversensitive,
but I see the same kind of humorless heavy-handedness starting to
appear. I counsel a strong dose of Gracie Allen for anyone who
feels that this discussion is of earth-shaking importance (Available
at fine spoken-recording purveyors everywhere, usually buffered with
some George Burns additive).

raybro