Conversation

This Tweet is unavailable. Learn more

Feb 21, 2018

The "PL as Math" side always left me cold, same as arguing "Shakespeare is just words." I read Knuth's "Literate Programming" in college in the '90s, and ever after have thought of PL as language, as description, as communication, first and foremost.

Brendan Zabarauskas

@brendanzab

Feb 22, 2018

I dunno, perhaps that's because you get different connotations when you hear the word, 'Math', which is perfectly understandable. To me the word evokes ideas of structure, relationships, beauty, form, and creativity… the deep underpinnings of everything we know and love.

Nope

@sean_of_w

Feb 22, 2018

I got the "vibe" of SML, and later Haskell and Rust. Correctness and totality are good properties, but they're *cold*. They exist for the machine, not for the human, and PLs are really about humans. PL as language, as literature, as communication, as art - that matters more.

Replying to

and

I dunno, I find langs like Rust and Elm and Reason bending over backwards to help me express myself better and more clearly, where as others give me the silent treatment and never critique me until it's too late, then it's a big slap in the face… 😰

2:07 PM · Feb 22, 2018Twitter Web Client

Replying to

and

The 'language' of math is a human construction. It allows us to peer inside the workings of the universe, then use those learnings to explore new, interesting ideas. While the universe itself cold and uncaring, we can exploit it to weave works of wonder.

Replying to

and

If I sit down to write a novel, I expect the word processor to get out of my way, first and foremost. Not to suggest themes. Not to "correct" my grammar. And definitely not Clippy. Same with coding: Do what I say, even if it's wrong, and leave it to me to know the difference.

Nope

@sean_of_w

Feb 22, 2018

I came of age coding asm on a 6502, which has a curious property unshared by most languages: There are no errors. No exceptions, no faults, at assembling-time or even at runtime. Every instruction does something, and none can fail.

Show replies