From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2008-06-17T16:40:22+09:00
Subject: Re: print(true and true) #=> the parenthesis issue

2008/6/17 Tom Cloyd <tomcloyd@comcast.net>:
> Robert Klemme wrote:
>
> [snip]
>>
>> That makes sense, and yes, that I realized. In print() parenthesis are
>>>
>>> enclosing the args, whereas in print () parenthesis are affecting
>>> precedence of passed-in expression. However, from the usability
>>> perspective, isn't it against some basic nature laws to leave it like
>>> this?
>>
>> There are no nature laws in IT.
>>
> Absolute nonsense.

Thanks for your kind reply.

> IT is not an entity unto itself. It is an artifact of the human brain.
> Furthermore, it must be USED by the human brain, else it is the proverbial
> tree falling in the forest when no one's around, and thus has no
> consequence. AND the human brain certainly does have laws, if by "laws" we
> mean something like "statements of pattern possessing a high probability of
> being true" (my definition). Philosophical idealists will not be satisfied
> by that, but such children should be ignored. Real men live with
> probability, as a fact of life. (Are we having fun yet?) So...natural law of
> IT exist, because all of IT must pass through the filter of the human brain.

With that argument the statement "there are nature laws in X" becomes
a tautology because they influence every aspect of reality.  I prefer
to keep the distinction because this allows me to make more
interesting (i.e. non tautological) statements.

The point here is that all formalisms in IT are human invented and
there is certainly nothing like a natural law that will demand that
"f(x and y)" is a valid expression.

> From that point reasonable point of view, we could well have the usability
> problem mentioned. I, for one, find this parenthesis problem obscure in the
> extreme. What happened to the principal of least surprise? Yikes.

Did it every surprise you before this thread?  If not, I don't see any
issue with POLS.

> Keep it simple, when at all possible.

Exactly. Having a feature that makes the language simple which is not
used by anyone (or only rarely) does not justify complicating the
parser more than necessary.

Regards

robert

-- 
use.inject do |as, often| as.you_can - without end