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From: bc@cyb-eng.UUCP (Bill Crews)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: When words are good and when words are bad
Message-ID: <604@cyb-eng.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Jul-85 19:36:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: cyb-eng.604
Posted: Sun Jul 28 19:36:40 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 04:28:51 EDT
References: <1985@ukma.UUCP> <2903@ncsu.UUCP>
Organization: Cyb Systems, Austin, TX
Lines: 20
Keywords: !politicians, !preachers

> Symbols are useful because they permit a small object to represent
> a large idea.  But remember that words are also symbols, just slightly
> longer.  The trouble with graphic symbols is that their meaning is
> . . .
>  c) squiggles have no relation to other experience, such as natural language,
>     and thus take more effort to memorize.

That is just the point.  Words DO relate to other experiences.  Thus we are
lured occasionally into associating their denotations and connotations with
their meanings in the programming language.  Why try to dream up some word
that closely approximates the meaning of, say, ^=, when one who knows what
assignment operators do and what ^ does can unambiguously infer the meaning?

-- 

  /  \    Bill Crews
 ( bc )   Cyb Systems, Inc
  \__/    Austin, Texas

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