Re: Language design values (Re: message primitive)

[Gregg Reynolds <greynolds at enteract dot com>]

Lynn Winebarger wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2000, Reynolds, Gregg wrote:
> 
> > I like "irreducible"; I think it can be made useful rhetorically.  Looking
> > back at my original question, however, it occurs to me that it needs to be
> > reworked, since the maximally simple basis would be the lambda calculus or
> > something like that.  Maybe "irreducible with respect to a particular
> > problem domain".  E.g., a polyline would be part of the basis of a graphics
> > language, and stuff like square and octogon would be combinations.  But I
> > guess a point is about the only irreducible 2D graphics primitive, isn't it.
> > Never mind.
> >
>     Are you sure a nand operation wouldn't be sufficient (once you build
> Peano arithmetic with it, you've got all you need, right?)
> 

Uh, yeah, you know, that's just what my grampa used to say.  Me, I've
heard of this Peano fella, but I never really trusted him.  :)

(I'm a mathematician manque` - who doesn't know how to do accents in
Netscape - so I kinda sorta see your point but maybe not.  But why
should that stop me?  I imagine your point is that it can be reduced
further, which wouldn't surprise me.  Drat, foiled again!)

Actually, for an olde Humanities grad, this is the interesting stuff -
how to put these indescribibably cool mathematico-structural ideas into
language non-dweebs can understand.  I suspect that's one of the reasons
I really like Scheme - the Scheme community, unlike most computer weenie
communities, seems extraordinarily literate - SICP, for example, being a
work of high literature, IMHO.  I have this (admittedly irrational if
not idiotic) idea that ordinary educated people would be able to
understand all this stuff if only it were explained in the right
language.  And that it would be a literary pleasure to read such
literature.

-gregg