C's syntax (was Re: Python Formatted C Converter (PfCC))

[Boris Borcic]

> Alex Martelli wrote:
> >
> > "hyphenation in Italian is best performed algorithmically,
> > given the strong regularity of the language's syllabification
> > rules; trying to adapt to Italian hyphenation algorithms
> > designed for other languages, adjusting only a data table
> > to account for the language, is vastly sub-optimal"
> >
> > Are you _seriously_ claiming that a reader's ability to judge
> > the worth of my words about Italian usage is not helped by
> > knowing that I am a native speaker of Italian, have lived in
> > Italy for most of my life, have co-authored with Tullio De
> > Mauro (a prominent Italian linguist, currently the Minister
> > for Education) a book on the results of computational
> > linguistic studies applied to Italian, etc?

(a) I note that even *assuming* your perfect knowledge of italian
grammar issues, and good faith in your claim, and even concrete
example of ill-adaptation of alien software through data tables,
your claim *still* is such that it implies something you might
very well be wrong about : that a design can't exist, such that
"data table flexibility" is adequate to encode "algorithmic 
syllabification rules" such that optimal treatment of italian
requires.

(b) Your way of argumentation, imho, kind of bypasses the fact
that the way the knowledge you cite may make a positive difference,
implies its use as a premice to an intermediary conclusion about
the good faith of your words. It is observable that *the same
matter* conditions whether your claims (to fullfiling
further patterns of cause to believe your expert opinion) are
themselves genuine or fabricated.

In fact, while these latter claims are easier to check,
they seem also easier to fabricate than the first statement
(in the absence of a checking activity).

I am reminded of Hardy's reaction to Ramanujan's
letter : "it can't be a fake, because a fake of that talent
is much less likely than a genius".

What I mainly mean to point out, here, is that I believe that
trying to look as if knowing what one is talking about, while
not knowing what one is talking about, should count as a
deliberate lie, and that of course *if you count deliberate lies
as a prominent probability* the problem of evaluating the
information in somebody else's words *profundly* changes.

These nits aside, I agree with you, of course ;-)

Grant Griffin wrote:
> 
> it seems likely that nearly all
> Pythoneers speak C

I find such a form of assumptions a bit offensive, in the
sense that they deny the right to be representative, e.g. to
any pythoneer that would not "speak C".

Imho prog. languages
are more like girlfriends than foreign languages, as far as
memory of specific anatomical details are concerned.

So : Yes, schools (and even employers) tend to impose that
particular public girl on people, but what is your business
assuming the general memorability of the experience ? ;-)

BB