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From: garry@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Garry Wiegand)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Discussion on removing punctuation in programming languages
Message-ID: <1206@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: Mon, 13-Oct-86 16:58:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: batcompu.1206
Posted: Mon Oct 13 16:58:05 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Oct-86 07:26:45 EDT
Reply-To: garry%cadif-oak@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu
Organization: Cornell Engineering && Flying Moose Graphics
Lines: 17

In a recent article ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) wrote:
>Punctuation is a very natural part of any language computer or
>natural the reason nearly all computer languages use such syntactic
>convetions either explicit by ending the statements in semicolons
>periods or by enclosing them in parenthesis or implied by using end
>of card or line is because this is the way most printed natural
>languages work I have never seen any attempt to simplify English
>language by leaving out the punctuation it makes for easier understanding
>of the printed word for humans and punctuation in computer programs makes
>understanding easier for both the programmer and the program

Punctuation is *not* necessarily "very natural". The addition of
punctuation to written English is historically recent, is it not? 
(My mental archives are whispering "16th century" at me.) Anybody 
know the facts?

garry wiegand   (garry%cadif-oak@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu)