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Re: Spoken programming language

From:Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>
Date:Saturday, January 3, 2009, 8:29
--- On Fri, 1/2/09, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:

> From: Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
> > I don't think that you quite understand me. I > meant that I wanted to make a > > human language based on programming syntax not the > word variety. > > How would you do that, though? > > How would you distinguish between past and non-past, for > example? (Or > is this a distinction you're not interested in making?) > > How would you modify nouns ("the red apple" vs. > "the green apple")?
Just off the top of my head, let "red" be a function, called with the thing to be modified with redness: red(apple). Let tense be a function applying its modification to an action, which in turn applies the action to a thing: past(run(Johnny)). Then the whole statement could be made into either an assertion of fact or a question: Assert(past(run(Johnny))); // asserts that Johnny ran Query(past(run(Johnny))); // queries whether or not it is true that Johnny ran. Functions could easily be nested to express more complex assertions, imperatives, or queries: Imperative(eat(NULL,red(apple))); Query(eat(Johnny,red(apple))); Assert(past(eat(Johnny,red(apple)))); Assert(past(steal(which(boy, past(with(rock, break(boy, window))), for(belong(me, bicycle(lock)), key)))); [The boy who broke the window with a rock stole the key to my bicycle lock.] --gary

Replies

Paul Kershaw <ptkershaw@...>
taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-conlang@...>