POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Reserved words redux : Re: Reserved words redux Server Time
9 Oct 2024 22:26:35 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Reserved words redux  
From: Darren New
Date: 17 Oct 2008 18:36:19
Message: <48f91363$1@news.povray.org>
nemesis wrote:
> That would utterly suck.  Programming languages should be about meaning
 
> and meaning is conveyed by words, not by how they are drawn or spelled.


Meaning isn't conveyed by words in programming languages. It's conveyed 
by tokens and formal matches between tokens at different parts of the 
source.

{ int index = 23;
   cout << index;
}

The meaning there isn't conveyed by "int". In chinese, you might use 
something different than "int" (maybe 整數 or something) an
d it would be 
just as meaningful if not moreso to a native chinese speaker (assuming 
you fixed the compiler, of course).  The compiler doesn't care what 
token you use to mean what Warp means by "int" in his code.

The word "index" doesn't provide any meaning, and the program would work 

identically if both instances of the word "index" were changed to the 
word "age". The compiler doesn't care what you name your variables.

The text doesn't mean anything per se to the compiler. Only the 
relationship of one part of the text to other parts of the text.

> Let external tools do any styling to the source text if you will.

OK, so reserved words are in greek, and user-defined words are in latin 
characters, no matter what fonts you use. Better? If so, why? If not, 
why not?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)


Post a reply to this message

Copyright 2003-2023 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.