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A comment on E.W.Dijkstra: On the foolishness of "natural language programming".

Re:E.W.Dijkstra: On the foolishness of "natural language pro... by acangiano on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @08:45AM (#1914145)
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

— Arthur C. Clarke's First Law

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Re:E.W.Dijkstra: On the foolishness of "natural language pro... by lemming on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @09:17AM (#1914260)
To be fair, he doesn't so much say it's impossible as say it's a bad idea.
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Re:E.W.Dijkstra: On the foolishness of "natural language pro... by bh42 on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @09:31AM (#1914307)
Exactly. The grandparent's comment is anything but relevant. While I do agree with it, it is clear it has nothing do with this.
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Re:E.W.Dijkstra: On the foolishness of "natural language pro... by gryan on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @10:38AM (#1914532)
Arthur C. Clarke: Science fiction writer.

E.W. Dijkstra: Actual computer scientist.

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Re:E.W.Dijkstra: On the foolishness of "natural language pro... by jmaygarden on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @11:17AM (#1914684)
Clarke was no technical slouch! http://lakdiva.org/clarke/1945ww/
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Re:E.W.Dijkstra: On the foolishness of "natural language pro... by jdp23 on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @10:22AM (#1914486)
Dijkstra said this in 1978, so he was only 48 at the time.
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Re:E.W.Dijkstra: On the foolishness of "natural language pro... by joshes on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @02:10PM (#1915318)
One could argue that he was an elder with respect to his field at that time.
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Re:E.W.Dijkstra: On the foolishness of "natural language pro... by lkozma on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @10:28AM (#1914502)
This holds for everyone, not just elderly scientists. Impossibility proofs are by their nature more difficult than existence proofs.
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