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Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 09:37:41 +0100
From: Helge Hafting <helgehaf@idb.hist.no>
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To: Stephen Satchell <satch@fluent-access.com>
CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [OT?] Coding Style
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Stephen Satchell wrote:

[lots of good advice deleted]
> One goal of language designers is to REMOVE the need for comments.  With a
> good fourth-generation or fifth-generation language, the need for comments
> diminishes to a detailed description of the data sets and any highly
> unusual operations or transforms on the data.

This is but a dream.  You can't "design out" the need for comments by
approaching natural language.  Try reading a law book and realize that
natural language too may be twisted to the extent that it needs
extensive comments.  The same goes for any computer language powerful
enough to do useful work.

Helge Hafting
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