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18:55:05
jackdaniel
if anyone is interested in ecl underpinnings then reading original kcl paper is highly recommended
19:14:49
shka_
i was wondering if you notices some parallels regarding clear style as described in the art of the style and programming
3:54:52
beach
shka_: Yes, there are many parallels between good style in technical and scientific writing, and good style in programming. Now, if only more people would realize that!
4:54:59
beach
No sane person would (say) write a text in the German language, and decide not to capitalize nouns ("because *I* prefer them in lower case"), nor would anyone start putting spaces before `:' and `;' in English ("because *I* am used to French, and *I* think it looks better that way"), nor would anyone put the adjectives after the nouns in English ("because *I* think it is easier to read").
4:55:30
beach
But pretty much every week, we see a person in #lisp arguing something analogous in programming.
4:57:45
Bike
i spose the difference is with natural language you're talking to a person, whereas in programming you're talking in large part to a computer that doesn't care
4:58:23
beach
Well, that's sort of what I am arguing. You are (or you should) mostly talking to the person maintaining your code.
5:00:10
beach
I just had an idea. When I argue with one of these people, I should use French spacing, and I should put adjectives after nouns. :)
5:01:36
beach
Anyway, time for a break. I have a long day in front of me. ELS paper bidding, some admin work, SICL code generation.
5:33:33
beach
alandipert: In your abstract, I think you should say more about your claims in the article and perhaps less about SPAs.
5:36:27
beach
You can skip the last paragraph of the introduction. I know it is common to have a sort of table of contents there, but it is pretty useless and represent noise more than anything.
5:41:05
beach
2.3.1 You say "atoms" but do you mean some subset of atoms like symbols and strings? I am asking because an array is an "atom" in Common Lisp.
5:44:08
beach
I would use full sentences in footnotes. Otherwise, you assume that the reader reads the footnotes when they referred to in the text. And if you assume that, they may as well not be footnotes.
5:45:02
beach
"this" should be followed by a noun phrase, so s/this is done/this conversion is done/ [for example]
5:46:37
beach
TAGBODY is not only for looping, so it is not clear why the two are mentioned together. And what is the "dynamic case of TAGBODY"?