Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!mccaugh
From: mccaugh@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Mathematics as the save-all languag
Message-ID: <82100004@uiucdcsp>
Date: 14 May 88 05:32:00 GMT
References: <4655@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Lines: 26
Nf-ID: #R:ihlpf.ATT.COM:4655:uiucdcsp:82100004:000:1321
Nf-From: uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu!mccaugh    May 14 00:32:00 1988


 It is sad to see "flaming" proceeding on both sides of this issue, and I
 certainly don't presume here to resolve it all...


 1) Some of the first inspirations for "higher-level" languages came from
    mathematicians who wanted to be able to express algebraic expressions
    more naturally: the result - according to J. Backus - was FORTRAN;

 2) When symbolic manipulation of algebraic expressions at a higher level
    than FORTRAN was demanded, MACSYM (among others) evolved.

 I could go on; mathematics (among other disciplines) has inspired a host
 of innovations that can only be called "programming in mathematics".

 The latest of these I have tried is "Eureka: the Problem Solver" from
 Borland Int'l: given some equations and initializations (so long as the
 functions are differentiable since it uses "steepest descent"), the system
 is remarkably quick at posing a solution. Having tried it, I do indeed feel
 as though I am "programming in mathematics".

 The direction programmatic evolution seems to be taking is to become
 more Descriptive and less Prescriptive: when I look at 'ei' (O'Donnell's
 equational-logic language) and Lucid - among others - I do indeed feel
 the tendency of programming as an activity to approach the style of
 mathematics, which is also more declarative than procedural.