[Edu-sig] Programming for Fun Quote

[Jason Cunliffe]

"Lloyd Hugh Allen" <vze2f978@verizon.net> wrote
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming for Fun Quote


> Mathematics hasn't provided a theoretically infinite level of
> abstraction since 1934, when Godel gave his lectures on uncertainty.
>
> It seems strange to me to separate mathematics and language (math seems
> to have syntax and grammar), but maybe I've been doing too much geometry
> and logic, and reading too much Hofstadter.

Yes Indeed. And reading too much Hofstadter will do that to you ;-)
The orginal writer's view was that for teaching purposes in shools,
programming is perhaps better approached from linguistic perspective first,
than to be treated as Mathematics.
I agree it is not Mathematics _or_ Language.  Mathematics is a [human]
language, and a subset if you will of Language. It more than that too.. but
not less.

An lovely example of this in action is the beuatiful and original calculus
treatise:

Who Is Fourier? : A Mathematical Adventure
by Alan Gleason (Translator), Yo Sakakibara (Introduction), Transnational
College of LEX

Paperback (May 1995)
Blackwell Science Inc; ISBN: 0964350408 $24.95
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0964350408/themathematiassoA/107-20
37412-5694951

cheers
- Jason