<story><title>The language of programming</title><url>https://temochka.com/blog/posts/2017/06/28/the-language-of-programming.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>spc476</author><text>Back in the 80s, Infocom [1] created a database program named Cornerstone.  Because it was an integrated environment, identifiers were abstracted.  A line of code displayed on the screen as:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    xn = (A * y) * x * (1 - x)
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
was actually stored as:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    id17 = (id1 * id11) * id10 * (1 - id10)
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
and there was a mapping of internal IDs to visible names:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    id1  A
    id2  B
    ...
    id10 x
    id11 y
    ...
    id17 xn
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
The upshot---you could change the name of a variable anywhere in the editor and the code would still work because the &amp;quot;name&amp;quot; picked by the programmer was not the actual &amp;quot;name&amp;quot; used by the system. I often wonder if that can&amp;#x27;t even extend to keywords in a language as well, translating this [2]:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    medan not_done
    börja
      för x:= 1 till 5 gör
      börja
        om person^.age = 120 så
          too_old(person);
        om person^.age &amp;gt; 130 så
          gåtill person_should_be_dead;
      slut;
    slut;
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
into:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    while not_done
    begin
      for x := 1 to 5 do
      begin
        if person^.age = 120 then
          too_old(person);
        if person^.age &amp;gt; 130 then
          return person_should_be_dead;
      end
    end
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Or heck, while we&amp;#x27;re at it:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    while(not_done)
    {
      for (x = 1 ; x &amp;lt;= 5 ; x++)
      {
        if (person-&amp;gt;age = 120)
          too_old(person);
        if (person-&amp;gt;age &amp;gt; 130)
          return person_should_be_dead;
      }
    }
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
But I&amp;#x27;m not holding my breath on this.&lt;p&gt;[1] Yes, the company that made all the text adventure games.&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;boston.conman.org&amp;#x2F;2008&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;04.1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;boston.conman.org&amp;#x2F;2008&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;04.1&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The language of programming</title><url>https://temochka.com/blog/posts/2017/06/28/the-language-of-programming.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ky3</author><text>&amp;gt; For better or worse, we must agree that English has won the world’s common tongue competition.&lt;p&gt;I too labor under the yoke of a foreign tongue not sung to me at my cradle.&lt;p&gt;But something to keep in mind about English is that she gives everyone a hard time. No-one gets a free pass. Absolutely no-one.&lt;p&gt;In a few months, POTUS Trump will visit the Queen of English. Fo&amp;#x27; shizzle they too will have problems with the language. She&amp;#x27;ll have bigly problems, and he&amp;#x27;ll have all the rest.&lt;p&gt;So the thing I do is to have something worthy to say, find people who&amp;#x27;ll appreciate it, and improvise a shared tongue for that special moment.&lt;p&gt;People have always gladly met me halfway.</text></comment>