So then...Baselined Lojban = PerlCleaned-up Lojban = Perl 6Hypothetical LoCCan3 = LispOn Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 01:03, And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com> wrote:
Korbi (白松 Oren) writes:[...]
http://teddyb.org/robin/tiki-index.php?page=Lojban:+You're+Doing+It+Wrong
Rephrased:
* Lojban should be Logical
* Lojban should be a Language
"logical" means no exceptions to rules, and no ambiguous syntax.
"language" means it should be effective in human communication
(clear*, brief and simple)
& Matt Arnold writes:Lojban could certainly be tidied up a lot, by a more muscular BPFK, by a scheme such as Robin proposes, or by -- as I would haha-only-serious-ly advocate -- Jorge being given the cathedra and its powers of fiat; and so like others I support Robin's new initiative. But the only way to really reconcile the "logical" and "language" goals would be to start the language from scratch all over again. Such a starting all over again could be done under the aegis of the Loglan--Lojban project -- John Clifford calls such a third-generation Loglan/Lojban 'LoCCan3' -- but it would be perverse to call LoCCan3 'Lojban'.
I hope no one misunderstands, to think that Lojban does not already
meet the goals set down in the essay. It does meet them. Of course
nothing is perfect-- nor can it ever be-- but Lojban leaves other
languages in the dust, since they do not even make the attempt.
Matt is right that Lojban leaves "other languages" in the dust only if "other languages" include only those with a community of users. From a design perspective, it would nowadays be extremely simple to effect enormous improvements on Lojban's design; and the starting from scratch would not in itself entail much new labour. The real challenges for LoCCan3 would be in reaching consensus on a design and in the very difficult search for a design that satisfies the "language" requirements (essentially, the amount of logical form expressed per syllable) enough to make the language better than natural language for general-purpose use.[*]
So, IMO, changes to *Lojban* should be confined to regularizations, simplifications (e.g. eradication of certain cmavo or selma'o) and specifications of semantic interpretation. You can relax the requirement of backwards-compatibility somewhat, but if you completely subjugate it to the Logic and Language goals, you'd end up starting again from scratch and producing LoCCan3. (And to repeat, LoCCan3 would be an immensely better language, but would not be Lojban.)
[* As I see it, the design problem has two parts. Both have to do with finding ways to logically precise meanings concise enough to be worth the effort of verbalizing. One part is to find a more concise way of of encoding variables than standard predicate logic notation and Lojban offer, given that in most propositions we express (in natural language) there are many variables and each variable tends to be argument of many predicates. The other part is to devise an inventory of predicates that expand to more complex logical structures.]
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