English binary logic operators

[Don Clugston]

antonio wrote:
> Ary Manzana wrote:
>> Bill Baxter escribió:
>>> David Qualls wrote:
>>>> I just compiled my first D function (adapted from C), and had to
>>>> replace all my 'and' 'or' and 'not's with the arcane &&, ||, and !
>>>> from prehistoric C to get it to compile.
>>>>
>>>> iso646.h has been a part of C for several years.  Perl, C++ and
>>>> possibly other languages have all adopted 'and', 'or', and 'not'
>>>> as part of their grammar.
>>>>
>>>> I write software that will be maintained by non-programmers
>>>> (mathematicians, who would prefer that I use Fortran).  Lots of
>>>> funny symbols in source code (like && || !) make it difficult to
>>>> read for the non-immersed (ah, who am I kidding, I even have
>>>> trouble reading it now and then).
>>>>
>>>> Is there any future to D incluing the logical operators in
>>>> English, as opposed to &!|%'ish?  (I didn't mention it, but 'mod'
>>>> might also be a good (easy for non-programmers to understand)
>>>> substitute for '%'.)
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>
>>> +1
>>>
>>> After 20 years of C/C++ my use of && and || was pretty instinctual, 
>>> but after just a few months of working with Python on the side I 
>>> found I started typing 'and' and 'or' without thinking about it.  It 
>>> makes complicated expressions more readable and would fit in great 
>>> with D's more "modern" look.
>>>
>>> As noted before, I'm also in favor of allowing 'in' to replace ';' in 
>>> foreach statements.
>>>
>>> --bb
>>
>> I guess the main reason to stick with symbols is some compatibility 
>> with C/C++ source code.
>>
>> Anyway, I also like the idea of words instead of symbols. You benefit 
>> from readability and it's also much more simpler to type (i.e. you 
>> don't you shift or look in a new keyboar for them).
> Well..
> 
> I'm an spanish programmer:
> 
>   My code is written using Spanish terms like "valor" vs "value", 
> "irSiguiente()" vs "goNext()"...
> 
> the best of algebra symbology is the language independence:
> 
>     [x..y] vs "Between x and y"
>     x < y  vs "x less than y"
>     a.b    vs "the b of a"  (Director Lingo used this sintax)
>     (a)b    vs "cast b to a"
>     a = b  vs "set value of a to value of b"
>     a == b vs "a equals to b"
>     { stamens } vs "begin stamens end"
>        
> 
> I'm forced to use the basic english programming syntax: if/else, while, 
> for, foreach, public, private, protected,.... PLEASE: STOP IMPOSING 
> ENGLISH TO THE WORLD... you are not the only one programming here.

I've got a lot of sympathy to this. I'm really surprised that I don't 
hear this view more often.
I'm currently maintaining some code that was written in Italian, 
modified in German, and now there's some English. It's a pig's 
breakfast. But still...

My feeling is... do not program in a language which you are not fluent 
in. I prefer to try to read Italian written by a native speaker, than a 
garbled attempt at English -- it's horrible to read code that was 
written by someone who was putting more energy into translation, than 
into thinking about their programming problem.

In the open-source Fast Fourier Transform project (www.fftw.org), 
there's a file with code written in Latin.
:->