sergejm:Use alternative quotes “)” instead of " ) " to aviod appearing smiles in the forum.

Those smilies are so annoying... If I wanted to make that face, I would do semicolon-parenthesis or semicolon-hyphen-parenthesis; quote-parenthesis doesn't make sense and is always making smilies where I don't want them. Except now I'm mostly in the habit of putting a space between quote and parenthesis. Pardon my rant.

kaŝperanto:I was doing some browsing on programming languages today and found a gem of a quote that I think also applies to human languages:

“There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.” — Bjarne Stroustrup

There is a kernel of advice in there for those who complain about every-other imperfection in Esperanto.

That is such an epic quote; is it fine if I translate it and use it for my esperanto.com signature? Sorry, I don't know anything about copy/translation permissions and gobbledy-gook like that.

"Estas nur du specoj de lingvoj: tiuj, pri kiuj oni plendas, kaj tiuj, kiujn neniu uzas."

Christa627:

kaŝperanto:I was doing some browsing on programming languages today and found a gem of a quote that I think also applies to human languages:

“There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.” — Bjarne Stroustrup

There is a kernel of advice in there for those who complain about every-other imperfection in Esperanto.

That is such an epic quote; is it fine if I translate it and use it for my esperanto.com signature? Sorry, I don't know anything about copy/translation permissions and gobbledy-gook like that.

"Estas nur du specoj de lingvoj: tiuj, pri kiuj oni plendas, kaj tiuj, kiujn neniu uzas."

I'm sure Mr. Stroustrup wouldn't mind, but you should cite him at least.

nornen:
I don't think that LISP be obscure. What detail of lisp gives you that impression?

Maybe the most iconic and typical aspect of LISP in comparison to other languages is its homoiconicity. Something which isn't present in Esperanto. Nor does Esperanto use s-expressions or cons. Hence, which are the heavy parallels between Esperanto and LISP?

Also, LISP's grammar is a lot easier and more concise than Esperanto's:

(1) s_expression = atomic_symbol / "(" s_expression "."s_expression ")" / list
(2) list = "(" s_expression < s_expression > ")"
(3) atomic_symbol = letter atom_part
(4) atom_part = empty / letter atom_part / number atom_part
(5) letter = "a" / "b" / " ..." / "z"
(6) number = "1" / "2" / " ..." / "9"
(7) empty = " "

The smileys are closing parentheses.

Lisp itself is quite far from obscure, I meant that Lisp is "not discovered or known about". Were it not for curiosity and a lot of googling, I never would have learned of Lisp or Esperanto. Perhaps pure Computer Science majors are exposed to it, but I never was as an engineering student. Even Forth, which has been and is still used in a variety of embedded applications (the recent comet-probe, for instance) was never mentioned - we only learned standard industry tools.

I also liken the "awakening" you get when seeing the basic concepts at work. Esperanto lets you see the fundamental concepts of human language in the way that Lisp lets you see the fundamental concepts of programming languages.

It is pretty amazing that the basic grammar fits into such a short list. For some reason I couldn't stop laughing for several minutes after seeing your winky-smileys.

Demian:
I don't know if you'll believe it but I was going to start a similar thread. Heck! I was going to use this Stroustrup quote because I'd read it last week. God!

Hah, I believe it. It's funny, because the first thing that came to my mind when I read that quote was Esperanto, not any programming language.

Bruso:

kaŝperanto:It is interesting how many parallels there are between human languages and programming languages (and many other things). Lately I've been studying the Lisp (Scheme dialect) and Forth languages, which are very obscure languages that most programmers don't even know about.

Programmers who were born yesterday?

The revelations one gets studying a Lisp-like language are heavily paralleled in Esperanto and other intelligently-constructed IALs. Along with the revelations come similar frustrations with the fact that, due to momentum, most programming continues to be done in sub-par languages (C/C++/Java/etc).

I rather like C and C++.

But isn't there another parallel here? Changing languages for every real-or-imagined improvement wastes more time and effort than it saves. Is every old program going to be updated to the new language? Or must every shop keep experts on the old languages around just in case they're needed?

Same thing with reform proposals for Esperanto. If everyone had to learn a new grammar point every few weeks or months, and rewrite the Fundamento or Privat's writings or Auld's poetry and everything else, the effort wouldn't be worth it.

I suppose I qualify as born yesterday to a bimilinarian.
I guess given my experience I should say "most engineers don't even know about", but I suspect that a large number of "programmers" have never heard of Lisp, and an even greater number have no real understanding of it. I imagine even fewer know of Forth. I'm imagining your "average", B.S. or Associates degree, learned to program in Java type programmer. Of course there are a large number who know of these languages, but there are many more who would not have come across them yet.

C and C++ are good languages, they wouldn't be around if that weren't the case. C is hard to beat for embedded, and C++ is powerful too, but they have their problems as I'm sure you are aware. Neither has syntax that is as simple or powerful as a Lisp. Forth's compiler model and overall design even puts C to shame for simplicity. C itself may be easy to understand, but it takes a 1000 page book to explain how a C compiler works.

Sadly, even C is "obscure" compared to the likes of Java, C#, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, etc. I've seen several "interesting" questions on Quora, like "Why would anyone want to use C for programming?" If only they knew their programming language of choice is likely written in C, or in some other language that was itself written in C.

kaŝperanto:

Christa627:

kaŝperanto:I was doing some browsing on programming languages today and found a gem of a quote that I think also applies to human languages:

“There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.” — Bjarne Stroustrup

There is a kernel of advice in there for those who complain about every-other imperfection in Esperanto.

That is such an epic quote; is it fine if I translate it and use it for my esperanto.com signature? Sorry, I don't know anything about copy/translation permissions and gobbledy-gook like that.

"Estas nur du specoj de lingvoj: tiuj, pri kiuj oni plendas, kaj tiuj, kiujn neniu uzas."

I'm sure Mr. Stroustrup wouldn't mind, but you should cite him at least.

Okay, thanks!