> I also have some essays about doing math with Roman Numerals, which
> isn't as impossible as it seems. ;-)
Charles, could you possibly point me in the right direction for
finding your essays? Roman numeral math is something that's bugged me
since reading chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov's outlandish
revisionist history theories.
http://www.world-mysteries.com/garrykasparov.htm
Also allow me to add some fuel to the fire of this whole language
argument by pointing people to what Larry Wall says at
http://www.perl.com/lpt/a/997 relating real languages and computer
languages. Part of the relevant portion below:
> When you go out to so-called primitive tribes and analyze their languages,
> you find that structurally they're just about as complex as any other human
> language. Basically, you can say pretty much anything in any human
> language, if you work at it long enough. Human languages are Turing
> complete, as it were.
> Human languages therefore differ not so much in what you can say but in
> what you must say. In English, you are forced to differentiate singular from
> plural. In Japanese, you don't have to distinguish singular from plural, but you
> do have to pick a specific level of politeness, taking into account not only your
> degree of respect for the person you're talking to, but also your degree of
> respect for the person or thing you're talking about.
> So languages differ in what you're forced to say. Obviously, if your language
> forces you to say something, you can't be concise in that particular
> dimension using your language. Which brings us back to scripting.
He then goes on and talks about differences in what different
programming languages require you to specify about different aspects
of your code. Not sure how this exactly relates to what's been
discussed, but it seemed relevant.
Received on Fri Jan 04 2008 - 17:27:49 GMT