I would think that it contains most of what you
might want to do in programming.
Then I thought why not back up a step. It costs less money to
get a copy of George Polya's "How to Solve it" ($13.27) or go
one step up to "Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning"
($26.95). If you prefer some other path to plausible reasoning
than mathematics, then you could opt for Albert
Upton/Richard Samson's "Creative Analysis" (out of print) or
Upton's "Design for Thinking"($14.95). Of course I still have a
few copies of "Creative Analysis" for use by my
who-want-to-improve-their-thinking-ability friends. Of
course, if you really want to blow your mind, then get g.
spencer brown's "Laws of Form" ($44, incredulous!).
Naw, we're still missing the boat here. We want to take a
problem expressed in one form and somehow give ourselves
the ability to express it in any number of alternate forms. In
so doing we have conveniently skipped over the implication
that we desire the many over the one or at least feel trapped
into it. If we concede, for example, the similarities of the
programming languages in their control structures (sequence,
decision, iteration) and their expressions (operators,
operands), if we concede they are more alike than different,
why do we not concede that we can synthesize them into one
without loss of anything?
That synthesis occurred earlier when a host of "special"
programming languages in the area of realtime control
systems, scientific, and business computing. It resulted in PL/I.
To date no other (third generation) programming language
has even come close including C and its enhanced variants up
to and including JAVA. That in spite of intensive standards
efforts, a seemingly unlimited amount of funding, and an
overwhelming number of users.
Now in our current SIG effort to provide a form of comparative
linguistics based on a common set of algorithms (which I
assume express what you want to do) I think we are on the
road to doing what you want to do. Given our rather slow
pace it goes without saying (though we are here) that we
could use your help.
Then we could start to make some judgements about writing
effort, the effect of syntax rules, the implementation of
control structures, the rules governing expressions (especially
mixed), and data types. After all we want to get what we
want with minimal effort. We want minimal effort to get to
writing. We want minimal effort in writing. We want minimal
effort to get to rewriting and while rewriting.
I guess we will have to wade through some extensive period
of gaining experiential evidence before we reach a consensus
on these minimals. It may or may not result in "my" SL/I.
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