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Re: [lojban] Response to Robin's "Essay on the future of Lojban"

> > >I expect there to be varying levels of documentation; a
> > >beginner's book, the CLL, the online super-spec, that sort of
> > >thing.  How much people choose to learn is up to them; you can
> > >speak perfectly good Lojban without ever opening the CLL, even
> > >now.  But when people *do* have a question, there should be an
> > >answer, somewhere.
> > 
> > I'd like to accept all this.  But to say that "you can speak
> > perfectly good Lojban without ever opening the CLL, even now"
> > implies that someone who doesn't ever open CLL and is still
> > speaking perfect Lojban even if he violates CLL.
> > 
> > If you can beat someone about the head and shoulders and say
> > "you are doing it wrong" if they don't follow some part of the
> > prescription, then they have to know that part.
> 
> If all you do is [optional UI] [sumti] [selbri] [optional sumti],
> you will never be wrong, and you will never need to open the CLL.
> You'll also be limited in what you can express, but add NU to
> that, and not *very* limited at all.
> 
> It should be possible for people to speak the language correctly
> after reading L4B or similar, without ever opening the CLL.

As a specific example of "no-one needs to memorize this, but we need
to document it anyway", I present
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Magic+Words

99.999% of the time, you'll never have to worry about what "zo zei
bu" means.  The first couple of tiers of documentation don't even
need to suggest that this is a possibility, beyond perhaps "for more
information see CLL Chap N Sec M".  That doesn't mean it should be
left undefined (as is the current state: the YACC does not touch on
those words at all).

-Robin

-- 
They say:  "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm  thinking:  "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other  than  the default  outcome?"  See http://shrunklink.com/cdiz
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/

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