Re:How to Say (Almost) Everything in a Hundred-Word Language...
by sixstringtheory on Wednesday April 26, 2017 @02:11AM
(#14200839)
If you like thinking about programming languages in terms of spoken ones, check out the book on J, which talks about gerunds, verbs and adverbs http://www.jsoftware.com/help/learning/contents.htm
Re:How to Say (Almost) Everything in a Hundred-Word Language...
by js8 on Wednesday April 26, 2017 @12:21AM
(#14200406)
Isn't the absence of user-defined abstractions the problem here? You cannot seriously program in BF, but you could program in lambda calculus or combinator logic, and it has just two primitives.
Maybe if there existed BF where you had a macro system for user-defined sequences, it would be possible to program in such a language.
It is entertaining to look for corresponding patterns between formal languages (programming languages) and natural ones. For example, defining new words is essential and corresponds to procedures. What about templates/generics? I think the concept of adverbs and adjectives comes close. You take a generic word "car" and specialize it "blue car". Natural languages have namespaces, but they are implicit. A jaguar could be an animal or a car depending on context.