🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <id.6S0V.FKH@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
>In article <Bxpoy9.GD6@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>> There is jargon and there is jargon.  I know of no case in which anybody
>> in mathematics or statistics deliberately introduced jargon for the purpose
>> of obfuscation, or deliberately introduced notation which conflicted with
>> notation in another field.

>So you're making the claim that computer language syntax was deliberately
>introduced to obfuscate or conflict with another field? Is that really
>what you mean here, or am I putting words in your mouth?

I have given examples.  Some have even introduced conflicts with previous
notation in the computer field.  A brief repetition of some of them is in
order.

	The use of | for or.  The vertical bar has been used in mathematics
	for other things for years.  I suspect that if it were available
	when Fortran was developed, it would have been used for absolute
	value.  The notation of .OR. for it in some versions of Fortran
	was far better.  I do not remember who posted on the history of
	the added symbols in ASCII, but he did say that \ preceded |, so
	that \/ would have been available, corresponding to standard 
	mathematical notation.  Also, while it is more recent, the use
	of \ instead of &~ was already standard.

	The use of ^ for exclusive or.  Similar arguments apply.

	The obfuscation created by using * for indirection, expecially as
	there was, at least for users of English, an appropriate direct
	alternative @.  Similarly for ++ and --.  Also, using & for 
	"address of", which apparently does not give problems, really
	does.  This one is not so clear.

	Even the use of ; as a statement end conflicts with mathematical
	notation almost two centuries old.  The standard hypergeometric
	function is written as F(a,b;c;z), and this was extended to 
	versions with more arguments in the 19th century.

SOME of this may have been inadvertent, and due to the ignorance of those
introducing the notation.  But for a language designer with large backing
not to check on this is in the nature of criminal negligeance, at least.

-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)