From: no.top.post@...
Date: 2011-05-16T19:42:01+09:00
Subject: canonical/syntax-diagrams representation.

I started investigating ruby.
It's very informal, which is NOT suitable for computing.
The chatty syntax introduction that: IF can come before
or after, as you like, and arguments can be bracketed
or not, as you like and block can use "}" or END; is BAD!

The bloke who heads 'intentional programming' wrote a 
good article explaining why <having too many degrees
of freedom> makes the task more difficult, as you already
know intuitively.

Because this is my Nth programming language, I just
want to make a <template driven editor> for my `mc`;
where the basic structures can be merely filled in.

We don't want to be bothered with ANOTHER arbitrary
syntax -- do we?

IMO the clearest syntax representation ever, was the 
syntax-diagram format of PASCAL which was used in
the 70s.

Can anybody point me to an on-line minimal formal
syntax for ruby, so as to not rely on the chatty tutors.  
We want a train-time-table format; not a novel.

Thanks,

== Chris Glur.