On 2026-06-11 18:30, Waldek Hebisch wrote:Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:On 2026-06-09 03:25, Waldek Hebisch wrote:[...]>
Interesting views. - Thanks.
>>>
I think biggest trouble is normal programmers. They already
struggle with current standard text. More formal presentation
could alienate even folks who now are able to explain standard
rules to other programmers.
I'm not sure what "normal programmers" are. From own experience
I can just say that there's a difference between what's "formal"
in a "lawyer's speeches and texts" sense and what's formal in a
mathematical sense. - The C-Standard as had been quoted here is
more of a lawyer's text, with its inherent property of not being
formally (in a mathematical sense) accurate (despite their tries;
in both areas, law and programming language, respectively). It's
thus not necessarily a problem if we'd have a more [mathematical]
formal standard. - Programmers, as I see it, need definite texts.
And rejection of the "lawyer's" sort of texts is not surprising.
That not necessarily affects their acceptance will of more formal
specifications.
You sniped most of what I wrote.
Yes, because I acknowledged it by my above on-line remark already
(and I didn't want to waste space unnecessarily). (No offense!)
I intended to comment just on the one paragraph above, with its
assumption that it may be an inherent problem to programmers.
But this paragraph was closely linked to the text above. Dan Cross
wanted formal semantics and my paragraph was responding to this.
I think that lawyerish style of current C standard is mostly inertia,
and making standard more mathematical would improve it. But giving
formal semantic in the standard would mean significantly bigger
change.
To elaborate only a bit more...
There's folks who have problems with "lawyer's speech" standards.
There's folks who have problems with formal mathematical standards.
But, as to my observation, there's *no* strict or natural hierarchy
that one would imply the other.
You said: "They already struggle with current standard text."
as if there would be a strict "one implies the other" fact; there
isn't one, or to be more cautious, "there isn't necessarily one".
(I used the wording "necessarily" already in my original comment.)
I certainly would prefer standard
that is less lawyerish and more mathematical, say written in similar
way to Pascal standard. But there is a _big_ gap between normal
mathematical text and a formal mathematical text (and let me note that
Pascal standard is less formal than normal mathematics).
I agree.
Normal
mathematical text depends on human understanding to disambiguate
and bridge small inconsistencies. Formal one has parts which
are there only because authors were not able to avoid
ambiguity in simpler way. And once things are written in a way
that is well fit to formalizm they tend to be much less
understandable to uninitiated.
(I'll leave that uncommented. - I've said all I intended to say.)
Janis
--
Waldek Hebisch
Les messages affichés proviennent d'usenet.