From: kragen@pobox.com
Date: Fri May 11 2001 - 23:49:03 PDT
Jeff Bone <jbone@jump.net> writes:
> Good points. Here's another one: Latin vs. English bears a very directly
> analogous relationship to Lisp vs. C. While the former in both cases is more
> expressive and more powerful, the latter in both cases has better in situ
> survival characteristics.
You're full of shit, Bonehead. I'll believe you on the "expressive
and powerful" part when I see a one-page essay in Latin that can't be
written in English in less than twenty pages.
I'm not sure whether or not I agree about the survival
characteristics. Latin was spoken throughout half the civilized world
for centuries; English hasn't survived that long yet as a world
language, so it's hard to tell in practice. English has simpler
inflection, but more complex and arbitrary pronunciation and spelling
and a larger vocabulary, so it's hard to tell in theory, too.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri May 11 2001 - 23:55:33 PDT