Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Tla spork

[Zenaan Harkness]

> > > case.  We're talking about a user interface, and because of that, we have
> > > to evaluate how much effort it is for the average person to use prefix
> > > ordering.
> > 
> > How many "common" infix binary operators (other than `=') do you expect to
> > see in a typical tla configuration file?  How many additions,
> > multiplications, division, ...?
> > 
> > Someone who's never heard of Lisp won't be bothered by parenthese.
> > Only people who've heard of it will think "omygod!run!this is Lisp!run!".
> 
> BTW, one piece of anecdotal evidence for this: when I was a freshman in
> college, the "normal" intro-to-cs course used pascal (with a syntax editor);
> there was also an "easy" intro-to-cs course for history majors and the like
> which used ... lisp.  The justification for this (as I recall) was that lisp
> was just easier to deal with for beginners, for various reasons -- nice
> interactive environment, lack of explicit typing, simple syntax, etc.

The problem with this is that, I believe, tla's dominant audience for
the medium term will be programmers, not historians (to head off any
redundant criticisms: computer people with (dominantly) infix notation
experience, as compared to non-computer people or those with enough
prefix experience to be happy with it).

This might not be the case, but I seriously doubt that.

cheers
zen