Re: Multiplicity, Change and MV

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:38:07 GMT
Message-ID: <zeb1g.61877$VV4.1154887@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>

x wrote:

> I don't see how but I think is this imprecision what allows for the
> expressiveness of human languages.

EWD addressed this very issue more than 21 years ago:

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD898.html

"The major attraction of the modern elixirs is that they relieve their consumers from the obligation of being precise by presenting an interface too fuzzy to be precise in: by suppressing the symptoms of impotence they create an illusion of power."

In his essay, he refers to "modern elixirs" as languages purported to obviate the need for programmers -- a claim I have heard many times by Pickies.

Pickies are universally intoxicated by the illusion of power to which Dijkstra refers. Received on Tue Apr 18 2006 - 14:38:07 CDT