> When you think about it, the weird thing isn't so much that all human 
> languages are inherantly vague and ambiguous. The weird thing is that this 
> is almost never a problem. In the overwhelming majority of cases, 
> everybody still knows *exactly* what you mean, even though strictly 
> speaking most sentences could have several possible meanings.

There's this thing called *context* that helps humans a huge amount, it 
allows you to understand things even though you haven't 100% understood each 
word.  But occasionally when unexpected things are said, especially when not 
too clearly, you need to ask for the packet to be sent again :-)

"How's the new server room Andy?"
"Is great thanks, but we got two cows in there at the moment".

A compiler would reply: "Error: COws in server room."

A person would reply: "Repeat previous statement please."

> Even more weirdly, people have invented more precise ways of saying things 
> (e.g., technical terms with exact and unambiguous meanings), and yet 
> humans find it *harder* to communicate this way, not easier. You would 
> have thought being able to say what you mean precisely would be easier, 
> but it clearly isn't.

I wish my compiler would say "WARNING: Hey, I guess you meant variableName 
instead of variableNmae, as no other declared variables are remotely like 
variableNmae", rather than "ERROR: Unknown variable variableNmae".

Writing, knowing that you need to be 100% accurate, is much harder than if 
you know a few mitsakes wont Matter :-)

Post a reply to this message