Subject: Re: Question on using Scheme on Large Projects
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 16 Aug 2002 17:29:05 +0000
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3238507745602043@naggum.no>

* Matthias Blume
| That's the problem with all semantics that are being specified in
| English: they are inherently ambiguous.

  No, that is not the problem.  If they were /inherently/ ambiguous, that
  would imply that the writer meant several things at the same time.  Such is
  normally not the case with specifications, which are neither poetry nor
  puns.  That only one things is meant is pretty darn obvious.  Therefore, the
  ambiguity is found in the reader's intent to find it.

  What we cannot do, is write such that nobody, given enough energy, could not
  find that it could also mean something other than what you intended.  Some
  people on news make this a sport, thinking that it shows their intellectual
  prowess to first find the intended meaning and then hunt for a second
  meaning that would be idiotic to hold, in order to pretend that this is the
  writer's fault.  Be advised that you are up against one such semantic game
  artist.

-- 
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder.
Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.