> The most popular programming language in computer science has no compiler, interpreter, or complete specification. It is remarkably concise. It grew over decades; today, dozens of variations are in use. Its complexity has reached the point where it needs to be re-explained every time it is used—but too often it is not; instead, each variant is more or less taken for granted. This has led to ambiguities and inconsistencies. Much effort has been spent in hand-translating, in both directions, between this language and other languages that do have compilers, primarily for the purpose of implementing yet other languages.
To me this seems like a pretty sorry state of affairs. The folks trying the hardest to speak precisely about the most precise human art use ambiguous and inconsistent notation. wat?
This is also the notation that is used in logic as well.
The thing about it is that, while every paper can have a slightly different variant of this metalanguage, all texts are supposed to contain an introduction defining exactly what this means. That's because it's common that, if you are talking about a new logic, you will have new syntax as well, or a slightly different way to make inference
> The most popular programming language in computer science has no compiler, interpreter, or complete specification. It is remarkably concise. It grew over decades; today, dozens of variations are in use. Its complexity has reached the point where it needs to be re-explained every time it is used—but too often it is not; instead, each variant is more or less taken for granted. This has led to ambiguities and inconsistencies. Much effort has been spent in hand-translating, in both directions, between this language and other languages that do have compilers, primarily for the purpose of implementing yet other languages.
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Steele Guy Steele
=> https://www.codemesh.io/codemesh2017/guy-l-steele "A Cobbler's Child" talk at Code Mesh 2017
=> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNPlDnX6Mio "A Cobbler's Child" (video on youtube)
=> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCuZkaaou0Q "It's Time for a New Old Language" (video on youtube)
=> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15473199 Discussion on HN
=> https://labs.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=94065:40150:0::::P40150... Slides
To me this seems like a pretty sorry state of affairs. The folks trying the hardest to speak precisely about the most precise human art use ambiguous and inconsistent notation. wat?