Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!necntc!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Computers and human languages
Message-ID: <1002@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: Tue, 25-Aug-87 12:52:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: haddock.1002
Posted: Tue Aug 25 12:52:16 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Aug-87 06:55:31 EDT
References: <111@quick.UUCP> <2842@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> <1043@bsu-cs.UUCP> <2242@xanth.UUCP>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 15
Xref: mnetor comp.std.internat:171 comp.lang.c:3900

In article <2242@xanth.UUCP> kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
>I would expect to see the alphabet in which C identifiers are written to vary
>to match the needs of the language group using C.

Probably.  Such programs cannot be strictly conforming, but if they are not
expected to be ported outside the locale of origin (this includes not only
foreign countries with nonstandard letters, but also VMS sites in the USA),
that's tolerable.  (And it's not difficult to write a transliterating program,
anyway.)  A compiler can admit such identifiers and still be conforming, so
the implementor has no good reason not to.

(Maybe someone needs to design a language along the lines of APL, with no
natural-language bias at all.)

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint