English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

alphabet

03:19

@MetaEd Happy birthday! Now let's pick a fight about whether literate programming should be more widely adopted.

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Oct. 29, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
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My Score: 2260

jlliagre

03:37

@CowperKettle French says autocongratulation.

Vikas

09:36

Nokia ringtone during concert of classical music

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M.A.R.

10:58

@MetaEd happy birthday!

Though I'm quite illiterate when it comes to programming

jlliagre

@MetaEd Bon anniversaire ! Peculiar indentation style though :-)

CowperKettle

12:13

Tigg Talk - Ep. 348: Reester Pruckett

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tchrist

12:41

occurro

== Latin == === Étymologie === Dérivé de curro (« courir »), avec le préfixe ob-. === Verbe === occurrō, infinitif : occurrere, parfait : occurrī, supin : occursum (sans passif) \Prononciation ?\ intransitif (voir la conjugaison) Courir au devant de. Exemple d’utilisation manquant. (Ajouter) Note : Par convention, les verbes latins sont désignés par la 1re personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif. ==== Dérivés ==== === Références === « occurro », dans Félix Gaffiot, Dictionnaire latin français, Hachette, 1934 → consulter cet ouvrage

@jlliagre Can you imagine a native speaker of Modern French (not Middle French) actually misspelling in English the word occurrence, or would that surprise you to see?

Also, "why" did Modern French lose the verb? :)

I realize that in Modern French, you have to choose a non-cognate when translating English occurred, occurrence. I'm just surprised that a native French speaker would have trouble with that word's spelling in English.

jlliagre

@tchrist For shitty reasons, I presume ;-)

tchrist

heh

jlliagre

Occurrence is used in French, more and more nowadays.

tchrist

Oh really?

jlliagre

En l'occurrence is an idiom for example.

tchrist

12:49

I am therefore left with only one other conclusion: that this was not a native speaker of French who made the mistake.

@tchrist If "not" is to be considered an adverb, that is in its most essential occurence in the sentence, as negating verbs, then in Lawler's example ("Not this August, nor this September"), which he claims as showing another "function", it seems to me that "not" is nothing else again than this same adverb, found this time in an elliptical phrase from which the verb is missing. — LPH 2 hours ago

jlliagre

@tchrist LPH is special but that's a mistake native French speakers could easily make.

tchrist

Very well.

Iberians could forget a C, but it would be weird for them to forget an R.

And people who think it's from a first-conjugation verb have no Latin at all.

jlliagre

Quite a common mistake even, even in printed material.

Two evens look odd.

tchrist

13:05

Fascinating.

jlliagre

@tchrist Maybe due to the fact -rrence is only found in a few words (concurrence, occurrence récurrence) while a single -r- is more common (adhérence apparence carence circonférence cohérence conférence déférence déshérence différence ingérence interférence préférence référence révérence transparence.)

tchrist

@jlliagre Notice how all of what you just said there also exactly tracks in English for those same words. What a coïncidence! :)

jlliagre

A coïnciddence even ;-)

tchrist

> aberrance [n.]
abhorrence [n.]
circumˈcurrence ← circumˈcurrent
concurrence [n.]
co-oˈccurrence [n.]
† counterˈcurrence [n.]
† ˈcurrence [n.]
debarrance [n.]
decurrence [n.]
† deˈmurrance [n.]
deterrence [n.]
† diˈfferrence [n.]
› graduated deterrence ← deterrence
incurrence [n.]
intercurrence [n.]
minimum deterrence ← minimum [n. and adj.]
non-conˈcurrence [n.]
occurrence [n.]
recurrence [n.]
† reˈferrance [n.]
reoˈccurrence [n.]
× sorrance → sorance
† ˈstirrance [n.]
† suˈccurrance [n.]
suˈsurrence ← susurr

Notice the tombstone symbol of a dead word: † diˈfferrence [n.]

I bet one too many folks wrote vive la différence and put the dagger into the heart of the double-R'd version. :)

I notice a strange carency in English for carence.

The scholars writing in English during the 17th and 18th centuries certainly knew what carency meant, and used it. Since then, however, not so much. But of course those scholars also knew more than English alone, which is why they plucked carency from its obvious origins.

> 1. intr. Tener falta o privación de algo. Una persona que carece de escrúpulos. La habitación carecía de ventanas.

I don't mean to say they plucked it from Spanish. They likely took it from French or perhaps directly from Latin.

> carencia
Del lat. carentia.

1. f. Falta o privación de algo. Los vecinos denuncian la carencia de zonas verdes.

Sin.:
falta, escasez, insuficiencia, déficit, privación, carecimiento, vacío, laguna, penuria, inacción, bache1, falencia.
Ant.:
abundancia, copiosidad.
2. f. En un seguro, período en el que el cliente nuevo no puede disfrutar de determinados servicios ofrecidos.

3. f. Med. Falta de determinadas sustancias en la ración alimenticia, especialmente vitaminas. Enfermedades por carencia.

Oo that's nice. I bet I wouldn't have thought of falencia off the top of my head.

Conrado

13:34

Does French have a cognate of dolencia?

Dolent is still in English per M-W, and dolence shows an entry in OED, behind a paywall from me.

Robusto

@Conrado My condolences.

tchrist

I would just use maladie in French for dolencia.

Conrado

Yes, that's what Linguee shows, too, as well as Google translate.

tchrist

Are you just looking for douleur for dolor? Words like dolent, douloir in French might be a bit past their best if used by date.

jlliagre

@tchrist Ha ha, I searched postings of mine in French.SE containing either occurrence or occurence. I wrote it without a double R in 20 posts in English but never when I wrote in French (50 posts). I wrote it correctly in English 22 times, just slightly more than the mistaken version. So I detect the mistake more easily when I proofread French than English. Funny.

tchrist

13:41

@jlliagre I bet you had no -ance errors. :)

I believe that deuil is more about mourning or bereavement.

jlliagre

@Conrado We have indolent and indolence.

tchrist

Like estar de luto > être en deuil.

Conrado

@tchrist I'm not looking for a word; it was just a whim because I read your list of -ence words above, and wondered if dolence still had an entry on the French side of the table.

Robusto

#travle #686 +0 (Perfect)
✅✅✅✅✅
https://travle.earth

tchrist

Gotcha.

Conrado

13:46

@tchrist Yes, I think that is right.

tchrist

> No debes estar de luto toda la vida.

@Conrado Always sad signs.

Conrado

Yes. Send not to know.

tchrist

No Gallic children of luctus?

> lūctus / lūctūs: maeror, maestitia, aegritūdō, trīstitia, trīstitūdō, tristitās, cūra, dēsīderium.

I don't mean it had two spellings; it's a 4th-declension masculine -us noun, not one from the 2nd or 3rd.

jlliagre

@tchrist The very rare luctueux.

tchrist

Ahah!

Quite learnèd, no doubt.

A reborrowing perhaps, as I don't think -ct- is supposed to "survive" the ages.

Like lactem > lait.

fructus > fruit

Conrado

13:56

@jlliagre Those are close enough to count, I think.

> Sense of "living easily, slothful," is 1710, a sense perhaps developed in French.

tchrist

@Conrado ocio :)

Conrado

Etymonline.

Robusto

#WhenTaken #246 (30.10.2024)

I scored 679/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 4626 km - 🗓️ 17 yrs - ⚡ 88 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 3707 km - 🗓️ 13 yrs - ⚡ 109 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 2 km - 🗓️ 4 yrs - ⚡ 196 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 328 km - 🗓️ 0 yrs - ⚡ 189 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 7125 km - 🗓️ 10 yrs - ⚡ 97 / 200

https://whentaken.com

Wordle 1,229 4/6

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jlliagre

14:12

@tchrist I found elle tient ses dolens, luctueux et lugubres regards in a 1602 book.

tchrist

I love how they would use the old scribal abbreviation for a nasal here and there to make the line fit better.

Robusto

14:32

Daily Octordle #1010
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5️⃣6️⃣
Score: 59

Robusto

14:58

Daily Sequence Octordle #1010
3️⃣5️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
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Score: 65

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Oct. 30, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
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My Score: 2020

I'm embarrassed that I got #10 right, but it was just a guess. Honest.

alphabet

15:14

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Oct. 30, 2024

T I G H T R O P E
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My Score: 1780

Cerberus

16:53

@Lambie I don't understand.

It is also not exactly respectful.

Cerberus

17:04

@MetaEd I'm really trying to understand what Literate Programming really is, but I can't.

Oh, well!

The idea in the broadest sense sounds attractive.

Lambie

17:18

@Cerberus Sorry but don't see what you are referring to.

@Conrado French has doléance(s), basically, grievance(s).

Cerberus

@Lambie I don't understand what you mean.

Lambie

@Cerberus You just said to me above: I don't understand AND It is also not exactly respectful.

Cerberus

Yes.

Lambie

And so I repeat: Sorry, I don't know what you are referring to.

Cerberus

You used disrespectful language.

Lambie

17:24

Where? Show me.

Cerberus

What do you mean?

Just click on it.

Lambie

Click on what?

Cerberus

On the grey arrow.

How else do you think I knew what your message responded to?

Why else would you respond to people's older messages?

Lambie

@Cerberus I had no idea how to do that. Obviously. There are many things on these sites that are still mysterious to me. Anyway, that was a joke.

Cerberus

Then why did you send a reply to my message, if you thought I'd have no idea what it was a reply to?

OK, a joke, good.

MetaEd

17:34

@Criggie I try not to have any birthdays.

@Mitch The tutorial is my present for myself.

@Conrado thank you!

@alphabet Balrogs don't practice literate programming, 'nuff said

@M.A.R. thank you!

@jlliagre the indentation style in the program after compiled to .c source you mean?

@Cerberus I tried to define it in the abstract section of the tutorial, page 1 basically

Lambie

@Cerberus Because I do know how to hit reply under a person's avatar. I didn't know about the grey arrow. Of course, it was a joke...

jlliagre

17:52

@MetaEd Yes, that.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(void) { printf( "hello, world\n" ) ;
		 exit(0) ; }

Cerberus

@Lambie Otherwise, it would not be possible for the other person to see what you had replied to.

I suppose I didn't understand the joke, then.

@MetaEd I read most of the PDF.

And the introduction to the Wikipaedia article.

The only two interpretations I could think of did not seem logical.

Either it is instructions to future developers / AI.

Or it is just comments / documentation.

But I think that's not what it is.

MetaEd

generally speaking the generated code from a litprog tool is not expected to follow indentation conventions -- those are more for code that's being written directly. But you can still do it. If the code were
int main(void)
{
<<hello main body>>
}
instead of
int main(void) { <<hello main body>> }
you would get exactly the indentation you expect.

@Cerberus It's not instructions to AI. There are people doing research now on getting to the point where you write the article and let an AI generate the code, but that's not literate programming, at least not yet. It's more in the nature of a technical paper addressed to future maintainers, such as future you.

But the other big idea that's in literate programming is the notion of holons.

If you're not developing holons, basically organelles, you're not literate programming.

Robusto

@MetaEd Ah, the eternal style issues surface once again.

MetaEd

@Robusto not really -- literate programming is style neutral. You can pretty much do any style in it.

Robusto

@MetaEd It is only ever a problem if you have a "house style".

MetaEd

18:07

Literate programming is actually a pretty poor name for what we do, because it clearly points to only half of what literate programming is. Knuth named it literate programming to shame anybody who doesn't do it and therefore is by implication doing illiterate programming.

@Robusto Yes.

A name that encompasses both ideas -- writing a paper with embedded code instead of code with embedded comments, AND decomposing problems into holons -- would be better.

Robusto

The big issue for me was white space. I got so tired of tabs, since nobody's IDE seemed to translate them the same. But they were so much easier than spaces. The HBO series Silicon Valley even lampooned that.

Silicon Valley - Tabs vs Spaces War

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MetaEd

give me tabs, lots of tabs, under starry skies. don't space me in.

but that's when I'm writing code. Tabs are no longer an issue when I'm writing a litprog document.

well, my statement is not always true. In the tutorial I posted for example, there are holons which form a makefile -- and tabs are syntactic elements in makefiles.

alphabet

@MetaEd Not totally. The overall structure of the code needs to make it amenable to explanation in English text and cleanly decomposable into holons for that purpose.

MetaEd

@alphabet I don't think I get it. Can you give an example of a style rule that would not work?

Michael Rybkin

How would you guys refer to this? A pack of pate? (It's pate inside.)

Robusto

18:22

@alphabet I understand holon from other contexts. How does it translate for coding?

Cerberus

@MichaelRybkin Cup?

MetaEd

@MichaelRybkin This reminds me of the question about milk pods.

Michael Rybkin

@Cerberus Hmm, maybe. I gotta buy a cup of pate. Does that sound alright to you?

Cerberus

I would just say, I will buy (some) paté.

MetaEd

11

Q: What is the name of the small containers of half & half, etc.?

Does anyone know what the word/name for the small plastic cup things that contain liquids (like half and half for coffee) is? Right now I’m using sachet because a coworker started to do so, but I’ve never heard them being called that (looked it up and apparently it's legit). I’ve thought of pac...

Cerberus

18:25

Except if the container were important.

E.g. when ordering for an hotel.

jlliagre

@MichaelRybkin What is pate? Paté?

Michael Rybkin

@Cerberus That sure works. But I want to stress the fact that I want to buy only one of these. Not two or more.

Cerberus

So I assumed.

Robusto

@MetaEd Related, but not apposite.

Michael Rybkin

@jlliagre Yes.

MetaEd

18:26

@Robusto Related, right. But the industry tends to call these "tubs" or "cups" regardless of what's in them.

so @MichaelRybkin you are likely to see these described in the industry as tubs, or cups.

Robusto

@MichaelRybkin Cup would be wrong. Probably "container" or "individual serving" and the like. I have some in the fridge with guacamole in them and I just looked on the box for words to what these individual-serving containers were called, to no avail.

Michael Rybkin

@Robusto "pack" would not work at all?

jlliagre

@MetaEd Yes, a [mini-]barquette in French, lit. a "small boat".

Cerberus

@MetaEd OK that makes sense, so it is closer to documentation, in a way?

Robusto

@MichaelRybkin No, alas. You can't have liquids or semi-liquids in a pack.

Lambie

18:29

@MichaelRybkin tubs are larger containers. cups is right. google cream cheese cups, you'll see them.

Cerberus

@MetaEd I read about holons. A kind of compartmentalisation seems useful.

Michael Rybkin

I thought pack would work as a general word to describe these types of food contaiers.

MetaEd

@Cerberus you can think of it as inverting the relationship between documentation and code. (A literate program is documentation with embedded code, rather than the other way around.)

Cerberus

I mean I only read what was in your PDF.

MetaEd

@Cerberus Often you want to analyze into pieces that are easy to prove or test.

Cerberus

18:30

@MetaEd A manual to create the code, perhaps?

MetaEd

@Cerberus A manual which incorporates figures showing "example code" which is not really example because it's the actual, complete, production code itself.

Michael Rybkin

Alright, I'm gonna go with "cup".

"A pack of instant noodles" is alright to say then?

Cerberus

@MetaEd A manual to piece together isolated elements to form the puzzle that is the end code?

Robusto

@MichaelRybkin Which in non-metric environments can mean a measurement much greater than you have.

Lambie

No, a package of instant noodles

MetaEd

18:32

@Cerberus Yeah, kinda that.

Michael Rybkin

@Lambie I hear ya. Thanks a lot.

MetaEd

@Cerberus but reading the manual, or paper, or book, or whatever, shouldn't feel like a puzzle. You want to organize the document in such a way that it's easy for a person to read.

Michael Rybkin

Thanks everybody for your replies. Very much appreciated.

MetaEd

And that's the opposite, sometimes, of what you have to do when you're writing code traditionally. And have to organize the program in such a way that it's easy for a compiler to read, but hard to make sense of when you read it later.

jlliagre

@MetaEd Ah, "The Old Switcheroo"!

Sep 27 at 21:36, by Robusto

@jlliagre a/k/a "The Old Switcheroo"

MetaEd

18:35

In the tutorial, you can see that happening. The declaration and use of the library functions are together in the same part of the document. Contrast a traditional C program source, where all your declarations come at the top and your uses come much later.

Robusto

> Friendship must be based on a firm foundation of sarcasm, inappropriate behavior, and other shenanigans.

Cerberus

@MetaEd A puzzle for three-year-olds.

MetaEd

@Cerberus I'm saying, when you use a litprog tool, you basically can write the program as a straight line, instead of a tangle that you have to figure out.

Cerberus

@MetaEd Hoisting may help?

MetaEd

And you have your choice of whether that straight line is top-down, bottom-up, or a combination.

Cerberus

18:39

OK I understand the very general concept better now, thanks.

MetaEd

@Cerberus Hoisting is a terrible idea. It tries to do what we're talking about here, but with side effects.

Cerberus

OK OK!

How terrible?

MetaEd

You can think of litprog as hoisting without the side effects though.

Cerberus

Right.

MetaEd

@Cerberus consider that in JS, variable declarations are hoisted, but their initializations are not. This is EXTREMELY confusing.

Cerberus

18:43

Hmm.

Declaration does not include initialisation? Or what is initialisation?

MetaEd

Let's say I declare "var discordia = 23". due to hoisting, "discordia" is lexically in scope throughout the procedure. But its initial value "23" is not hoisted. Anywhere above the declaration, its value is undefined.

Mitch

@Robusto I think the result is that since most text doesnt refer to individual units like this, that there is no generally accepted single word for just this concept. Or there's some weird taboo about talking about the individuals it at all.

"Just give me one" "One of what?" "One of ... those."

MetaEd

@Mitch outside of the industry I agree. But when you're the filler, and you're buying empties, there are very clear accepted words for them. (tubs or cups)

Mitch

@MetaEd What about programs that aren't exactly straight lines, one step after another and then you're done.

Cerberus

@MetaEd Ahh OK, assignments are not made, got it.

Mitch

18:48

like complicated algorithms.

@MetaEd oh, sure, the technical jargon that we don't have access to (just don't ever hear)

MetaEd

@Mitch Even more important then to break them down into holons so you can better see the forest instead of the trees.

Mitch

Hoisting? Holons? What strange worm has infested our tongues?

Cerberus

@Mitch Oh, yes, I feel this.

Mitch

@MetaEd Matrix Multiplication

Cerberus

@Mitch Except on the package itself.

Mitch

18:51

@Cerberus There are lots of concepts for whch there are no single words.

Cerberus

@Mitch No way!

Mitch

Frankly if there were we'd all be communicating in single words.

@Cerberus Yes way!

Cerberus

Maybe way.

MetaEd

@Mitch My favorite bit of jargon when it comes to milk is "cows". This is a cow:

Mitch

@Cerberus That's way off.

@MetaEd Oh.

Then I've drunk milk straight from a cow.

MetaEd

18:53

I dare say anybody over a certain age who used college food service drank milk straight from a cow.

Mitch

@MetaEd I will grant you that at some level of conceptualization, for nearly everything, there is a level of specificity that is straight line.

But...

MetaEd

@Mitch a person with a background in biology might be more comfortable with "organelle" instead of "holon".

Mitch

...but that level is not necessarily the most informative or the simplest or gives the most understanding.

@MetaEd uh... how about module?

to be a little less obscurantist.

MetaEd

@Mitch right. and I'd go further and say that the order imposed on you by the language you're coding in is, more often than not, worse than any order you could come up with.

@Mitch the problem with "module" is it has very specific meaning already.

Mitch

OK, that works for me.

But...

MetaEd

18:57

And the advantage of "holon" is it also has very specific meaning, and it's the right meaning.

Mitch

but I'll expect to hav to dodge every attempt at a slap whenever I use it.

@MetaEd Oh. That's problematic for me.

Because I don't know the right meaning.

MetaEd

I mean of course you could coin yet another word, but with holon that's already been done.

You could use "assembly", in the mechanical sense, but that would be very misleading in software development because in that context it means a type of language.

"organelle" is actually pretty good except strictly speaking it's not hierarchical. holon is.

organelles form cells, cells form organs, organs form plants or animals, but all of those are holons.

Mitch

@MetaEd The hierarchy is too simple. and flat. and there's lots of things in cells that are not part of that hierarchy.

OK but now do matrix multiplication.

MetaEd

@Mitch then I imagine you could come up with a less naive way of describing the holons making up an animal

@Mitch I'm familiar with the combinatoric explosion, if that's what you mean

Mitch

Yes, I can almost see the page in TAOCP where DK does it, but at this moment I can't even imagine how it's a one part holon.

But agreed, MM and other combinatorial (and numerical) algorithms are a selection where holonism is intentionally difficult, and the great majority of systems being built today are not algorithmic but are holonomic.

@MetaEd Just checked. In the sections on integer multiplcation Knuth giives a few pages to matrix multiplication and dispense with the naive algorithm in half a sentence as an aside. The Strassen algorithm takes a few pages but not with a short sequential list explanation which is what I expect for a holonomic rendering.

MetaEd

19:16

@Mitch So it's a μῆχος watch.

@Mitch did you see where the Holon Programming paper was rediscovered and published online?

Mitch

20:00

@MetaEd I did not. link?

@MetaEd ? ?hat's Greek to me. Figuratively.

MetaEd

@Mitch sauce: github.com/holon-scribe/holon-programming

@Mitch it's an allusion to the parable of the watchmakers reproduced on the Holon (philosophy) Wikipedia page.

alphabet

20:26

@MetaEd I mean style rules as in code structure. For example, I can read Haskell Quicksort almost instantly and see how/why it works. But it'd be hard for me to explain it in English, and that English explanation wouldn't correspond very well to the code, e.g. there's nothing that corresponds to the steps "Take the first value from the list" or "Check if the list is empty."

MetaEd

@alphabet Looking at that page, it seems the C solution works in place and therefore uses much less CPU and RAM than the Haskell solution, BUT the Haskell solution is easy to read, and the C solution is complex and hard to read and maintain. The real leap forward here would be to leave the Haskell solution alone, but express the C solution using holons.

alphabet

@MetaEd Lazy execution means I'm never confident in figuring out the performance characteristics of Haskell programs (something I rather dislike about the language). But the C version is probably faster.

@MetaEd But more to the point: the C program can easily be converted into holons; the Haskell one can't. So the easier to read version is the one harder to convert into a literate program.

Robusto

20:42

@MetaEd They're not hoisted if you use let instead of var inside closures.

MetaEd

@alphabet I would say the easier to read but naive version doesn't really need to be decomposed into parts, but the harder to read but complex version does.

That is, a complex system is going to be easier to understand, maintain, and test or prove when you can analyze it into simpler parts.

MetaEd

20:57

On the other hand, consider the Haskell sort in a real-world context. It would be a holon, forming a part of a complex application. That complex application would be analyzable into simpler parts, one of which might be the quicksort it uses.

And there, the other half of literate programming would have its day. You would preface the quicksort itself with its rationale: why implement one's own quicksort, for example, would be explained.

MetaEd

21:15

Wordle 1,229 3/6

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CowperKettle

21:41

CowperKettle

21:52

Peter Pan read by Michael Jackson (Ai Audiobook)

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Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…