[plt-scheme] The perfect teaching language--Is this too much to ask for?

On Sun, 2009-06-14 at 15:33 -0400, hendrik at topoi.pooq.com wrote:
   . . .
> Natural languages had nouns and verbs and adjectives and adverbs and 
> prepositions (only some have postpositions) and main clauses and 
> subordinate cluses and prepositional phrases and so on.  They are way 
> more complex than programming languages (perhaps this is evolution vs. 
> design).  Yet we find them convenient in 
> everyday use.
> 
> There's probably something to be learned from this variety of syntax.  

I seem to recall that Larry Wall was of the opinion that natural
language mechanisms like endings would be useful in a programming
language, and he came up with the "@" and "$" decorators for variables
on that model.  I for one think the experiment was a spectacular failure
-- all he did was invent another write-only language.

Just my opinion,

-- 
Bill Wood