In article <2ver7iINN8jk@early-bird.think.com> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
Mathematical practice should hardly be seen as a model for good programming
style. The reason mathematicians make such extensive use of fonts and case
is because all their symbols have only one letter in their names! If they
called the real numbers "Real", they wouldn't need <curly-R>.
This is simply because mathematics is not meant to mean anything,
while programs try to model something. Mathematics is as abstract as
possible and tries NOT to exploit your imagination, because
imagination can be misleading. Of course it's easier to understand if
it comes in familiar terms (as is usual practice in programming), but
the analogy offers a particular interpretation already, thereby
clouding the abstraction behind it.
Mathematics is necessary for programming, but mathematicians usually
write unintelligable code. They learn it that way. Languages like
Fortran were developed for mathematicians.
(do you think I should have crossposted this to alt.philosophy? or rather
to alt.flame.fortran.programmers.especially.mathematicians? :-)
--axe
.# Axel - a hairy subject 2wienbe@rzdspc2.informatik.uni-hamburg.de
=:-) * Axel Wienberg
"# "...or is it just like life: interesting in bits,
but no substitute for the real thing..."
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--axe
.# Axel - a hairy subject 2wienbe@rzdspc2.informatik.uni-hamburg.de
=:-) * Axel Wienberg
"# "...or is it just like life: interesting in bits,
but no substitute for the real thing..."
Douglas Adams
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