% is not an operator [was Re: Verbose and flexible args and kwargs syntax]

[Eelco]

On Dec 15, 11:56 am, rusi <rustompm... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 15, 2:44 pm, Eelco <hoogendoorn.ee... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In other words, what logic needs is a better exception-handling
> > system, which completes the circle with programming languages quite
> > nicely. :)
>
> Cute... but dangerously recursive (if taken literally)
> Remember that logic is the foundation of programming language
> semantics.
> And your idea (suggests) that programming language semantics be made
> (part of) the foundation of logic.
>
> Of course I assume you are not being very literal.
> Still the dangers of unnoticed circularity are often... well
> unnoticed :-)

Well, logic as a language has semantics, one way or the other. This
circularity is a general theme in epistemology, and one that fits well
with the view of deduction-induction as a closed loop cycle. Knowledge
does not flow from axioms to theorems; axioms without an encompassing
context are meaningless symbols. Its a body of knowledge as a whole
that should be put to the test; the language and the things we express
in it are inseperable. (the not-quite-famous-enough Quine in a
nutshell)

The thing is that our semantics of logic are quite primitive; cooked
up in a time where people spent far less time thinking about these
things, and having a far narrower base of experience to draw ideas
from. They didnt have the luxury of already having grown up studying a
dozen formal languages before embarking on creating their own. It
other words, the semantics of logic is a legacy piece of crap, but an
insanely firmly entrenched one.

I mean, there are many sensible ways of defining semantics of
conflicting symbols, but you'll find on studying these things that the
guys who (often implicitly) laid down these rules didnt even seemed to
have consciously thought about them. Not because they were stupid; far
from it, but for similar reasons as to why the x86 architecture wasnt
concieved of the day after the invention of the transistor.