Message-Id: <199310090744.AA15148@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Sat, 9 Oct 1993 03:42:35 -0400
Reply-To: Jon Wolfe <wolfe@GBORO.ROWAN.EDU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Jon Wolfe <wolfe@GBORO.ROWAN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: >6 place brivla, fat gismu, deleting ...
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO

Please excuse my butting in here.  I'm not familiar with predicate
logic and am only recently exposed to lojban.  Most of the posts are
a bit too technical for me.  But I do have a perspective on the question
of the arguments to a gismu, brivla or whatever.

I program computers and there is some similarity here.  Over several
years I have come to the conclusion that the fewer arguments to a
function the better.  There are some common four argument "C" functions
I look up almost every time I use them because I forget the order.
The ordering of arguments in a function is one type of what is
technically know as "binding".  There are several types of binding and
it is impossible to program without it.  But it is best to minimize it.
Object oriented languages (C++ is perhaps a poor example, but it is what
I know), makes avoiding binding a little easier.  Instead of saying:

        print(message, row, column, output_device, typeface, vertically,
                red_on_blue, xor_pen, ....      (I know I'm exagerating)

and then having to either create a new function when another argument
is needed or else to change all references to the function, I can create
an object with default settings and only give those arguments i want
to change.

        object.set_position(row,column)
        object.print(message)

For another type of object I may use the same function names but pass them
slightly different kinds of arguments.  (Ex. row/column could be 1 unit
per character for one object and a pixel address for another.)  The
advantage of this is that I have fewer names to remember.  The danger
of course is that I will forget that the arguments are different.

I'm not sure how, if at all, this relates to lojban.  In many ways, these
object oriented functions act like prepositions (which as I understand it,
we don't have).  But perhaps someone can find something useful here.