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From: steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Discussion on removing punctuation in programming languages
Message-ID: <771@scc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-Oct-86 13:47:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: scc.771
Posted: Wed Oct 15 13:47:15 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 18:58:58 EDT
References: <1206@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Organization: Don Steiny Software
Lines: 37

In article <1206@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>, garry@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Garry Wiegand) writes:
> 
> Punctuation is *not* necessarily "very natural". The addition of
> punctuation to written English is historically recent, is it not? 

	No.

> (My mental archives are whispering "16th century" at me.) Anybody 
> know the facts?

	I certainly know that Old English (before 1066) was puncuated
as was Middle English (Chaucer - 14th century).     

	Puncuation of some sort is natural because it seeks to
represent the natural intonation of spoken language.   All written
natural language is is a symbolic representation of spoken natural language.  

	Before there was even writing recorded events were puncuated in
in a sense by being poems.   George Miller's work seems to show that
humans can remember a limited number of "chunks" of informations.  
Poems group the chunks by having rhyming units.  Prose breaks the
text into chunks by indicating sentence and phrase boundries with
commas, periods, and so on.  
	
	Maybe we should invent a programming language that deliniated
statements with iambic pentameter.    Or sonnetts. 

	"when in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
	     I, all alone, beweep my outcast state. . ."


-- 
scc!steiny
Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software 
109 Torrey Pine Terrace
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
(408) 425-0382