[Haskell-cafe] extending the notion of notation (was: extending Do notation)

MigMit miguelimo38 at yandex.ru
Tue May 20 20:44:46 UTC 2014


On 21 May 2014, at 00:32, Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> wrote:

> On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 2:51 PM, MigMit <miguelimo38 at yandex.ru> wrote:
> And no, whatever Lispers want to believe in, program is not AST. Program is TEXT. 
> 
> No, a program is a bunch of bits the computer can execute. It can be represented as TEXT, or an AST, or even a diagram in some graphical programming tool somewhere - all of which we also confusingly call a "program".

Incorrect. There are programs in pseudocode, programs for MIX, programs for machines they don't make anymore. Ada Lovelace created some programs for Babbidge's machine. Program can be buggy, or unfinished. Neither of these types of programs can be executed, but they are still programs.

I'd say that what makes program a program is not how it's executed, it's how it is read. By humans.

And, as for now, there are no adequate alternatives to text representation. They all lose coding style, at least.


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