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Date:	Fri, 7 Jan 2005 17:20:02 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: Boundaries Are Better (was: A bit too much to byte)

Content Type: text/plain

Peter,

I really don't know how to respond. I go to great lengths with
concern about how I serialize sentences in a paragraph,
serialize paragraphs within a section, serialize sections within
a chapter, and serialize chapters in a book. Then I assume for
the sake of ease and not necessity that I will somehow
serialize the order of books in a library.

Nevertheless the assertion lay in having as close a match
between the descriptive and prescriptive languages as
possible. You respond with "No. No. No no no no no." Then
you proceed to offer a prescriptive/descriptive (I don't know
which) form which looks the same to me for either. Both look
pretty much like english. They look like english even in the
detail. Even if you contained them as blocks within blocks as
in your detail, they still look like english.

Just what is it that you object to? The discussion did not lie
in how you thought whether linearly or not but in the
language you used to express those thoughts.

You want to "print the subtotals extracted from an input file".
Why would you not simply say that? Granted that the
"containment", your boundaries, occurs the exact opposite of
what you propose. Here you think in the strict imperative
terms of first, second, and third generation languages, which
is "linear in the classic computer sense", bringing to mind the
fixed or contained form of RPG.

In your world the "reading" is the containing process, the
"extracting" within it, and the "printing" within that. That
basically represents "classic" input thinking. Whereas my
expression represents "classic" output thinking. Where
printing is the desired result, extracting a sub-result, and
inputting a sub-result under that.

Consider an SQL lookalike: "SELECT SUM(subtotal)
FROM(input) WHERE record_type = 's';" Again without arguing
how your must structure your thinking the prescriptive
language does not differ significantly from the descriptive one.
That probably accounts as much to its acceptance and use in
the non-programming community as anything else.

In fact if you shift from SQL (Structured Query Language) to
UQL (Unstructured Query Language) it doesn't make any
difference if you write "WHERE record_type = 's' FROM (input)
SELECT SUM(subtotal). That is the order of the SELECT,
FROM, and WHERE clauses are unimportant.

You could then write them as three separate sentences
comprising a paragraph, in any order within the paragraph,
and convey the same result. Your "boundaries" remain in
effect. While any of them may appear "strange" or "stilted"
english they still appear as english. That was the point of
what you wanted if you had to have two languages: you
wanted to minimize the differences.

You have to be careful what you say "no" to. Yes?

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