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Date:	Fri, 21 Feb 2003 09:26:58 PST8
From:	"Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	< "scoug-programming@scoug.com" > scoug-programming@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: In retrospect

Content Type: text/plain

Ben writes:
"Tools exist to do the translation automatically, but I'm told
they're not good enough yet to be really useful."

From my perspective then they do not exist. I think what
you do falls more closely with the engineering/scientific
systems that Greg works on than operating systems and
business applications. I have to be somewhat careful as in
truth no such thing as an open system exists. We have only
different variations of closed systems. This is another way of
saying that only the environment exists regardless of any
abstraction on our part. Our language allows us to make
what we know in reality is impossible. In "the lightning
flashes", our subject-verb world, fails to represent that the
lightning and the flashing are one and the same. The Hopi's
don't make that mistake. Then again they don't have
personal pronouns and thus no concept of private property.
For that we teach them English which treats private property
as a "natural" occurrence.

Ah, yes, we're going to have some fun along the way.

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