On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 8:59 AM, Henry Rich <[email protected]> wrote:
> My view of ambiguities is less tolerant. Yes, English is a wonderful
> language for expressing ambiguities, but it is not wonderful when you are
> trying to avoid ambiguities. Legal writing & government regulations are so
> ugly because that's the kind of English you are forced to use to say exactly
> what you mean.
>
> Is 3 'more than' $0? I don't know. But I think it's wrong to seek the
> answer in the result of the execution of a sentence. I could appeal to
>
> if. 3 > $0 do.
> smoutput 'it's greater!'
> end.
>
> as answering the question 'formally'. But then,
>
> if. -. 3 > $0 do.
> smoutput 'it's not greater!'
> end.
>
> I would find that my definition of 'formal' needs work.
>
> I don't think different expressions for the same computation represent
> ambiguity. Ambiguity is multiple meanings for the same expression: magical
> in poetry, abhorrent in technical writing, intolerable in a computer
> language.
>
> Henry Rich
>
>
>
>
> On 10/6/2013 6:00 AM, Raul Miller wrote:
>>
>> If we think of this in J terms, we might treat "more" as a verb such as
>>
>> more=: >
>>
>> Then your first sentence becomes a question about 3 > ,2 which has an
>> answer which matches ,1.
>>
>> Your second sentence would involve more work to translate to J. I
>> could translate it as
>> (3 > $0) +. 3 > 4 1
>>
>> ... but this gives us a length error, and our distaste for errors
>> might drive us further afield, to find another translation for "or".
>> If we felt exploratory, we might try:
>>
>> or=: ;
>>
>> so another almost plausible translation could be
>> ($0) ;&(3&>) $4 1
>>
>> Put differently, english is a wonderful language for expressing
>> ambiguities and translation tends to freeze some of those ambiguities
>> in the resulting work.
>>
>> With J we are also faced with ambiguities, but because it is an
>> executable notation we get another perspective on ambiguities of
>> expression, where different expressions might achieve the same end.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
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