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From: sas@BFLY-VAX.BBN.COM.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.ai
Subject: Re: Vulgar tongue
Message-ID: <8703050611.AA20942@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Mon, 2-Mar-87 08:59:00 EST
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Posted: Mon Mar  2 08:59:00 1987
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Mr. Talmon misunderstood my argument.  I did not come out against
symbolic notation - I argued that mathematical and logical notation are
not the appropriate symbolic notation for computer science.  That is
why I gave a series of examples showing that many fields have developed
their own formalisms which are not variants of mathematical and logical
notation.

APL may look a lot like matrix algebra at first glance but it is
decidedly procedural.  Similarly, PROLOG may look like mathematical
logic, but I don't recall Aristotle, Aquinas or Quine discussing
anything even vaguely like 'cut'.  I could base a programming language
on chemical notation or architectural renderings, but understanding it
would STILL require reasoning about procedural execution.

					Seth