Subject: RE: xslt core and intuition was RE: [xsl] Reference to variable c annot be resolved. From: "Roger Glover" <glover_roger@xxxxxxxxx> Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 00:15:43 -0600 |
Kienle, Steven C [IT/0200] > > Then it must take a *lot* of C language history understanding to make that > > statement intuitive. Dennis Ritchie, creator of the C language, once said > > that this was the most common error that *he* makes when programming in C. > > Understanding and not making the error are two entirely different > animals.... Which kind of reinforces my point. Errr... I don't see how. The point to which I was responding was this: > > > if (i = j) ... > > > That really does make intuitive > > > sense if you understand the history of the language. Certainly when one has an "intuitive sense" about some topic, one is less likely to make mistakes involving that topic. Otherwise, what is the value of intuition? My point is that *NO* depth of understanding of the C language, historical or otherwise, would give anyone who was taught common math symbols as a child an "intuitive sense" about C's treatment of that if statement. > C is a language that grew, > supposedly intuitively, as a "better assembler." I believe that Thompson, Ritchie, Kernighan, et al. would consider their work anything but intuitive. It is well documented that their sparse, cryptic syntax was painfully reached based on the unbelievably **slow** response times of the paper teletype terminals that they used for interactive access on their project. Keystroke optimization was such an overriding concern that they even had informal contests to see who could write a given program with the fewest number of keystrokes. While their goal was to create a "high-level, portable assembler", their circumstances caused them to make some strange (and perhaps unfortunate) syntax choices. > If these sorts of errors > are cased by "intuitive" languages, give me a logical one any day. Again, as stated above, the premise of this statement is very flawed. > That being said, the use of the name "variable" in XSLT was perhaps not the > best name for the element. If you only had exposure to math, and not to procedural programming, XSLT's use of the term "variable" would seem entirely natural. Circumstances being what they are though, I must agree with you. Who learns XSLT (or PostScript or Forth or Lisp) as a first programming language? -- Roger Glover XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
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