Subject: Re: [lojban] Binary Language

From: Rob Speer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 02:39:59 -0500

On Sat, Dec 22, 2001 at 05:58:17AM -0000, thinkit41 wrote:
> Well I put together a rough draft of the binary language I was 
> talking about. http://home.earthlink.net/~thinkyad/bl.txt .
> 
> The lojban influences should seem obvious. I think with careful 
> choice of idea words, I can already represent lojban with this syntax.
> 
> Any comments?

It's like you took Plan B and mixed it with HP49 Basic [1], put the
whole thing in a Terminology Mixmaster (TM) and pulled out random chunks
which you then presented to us in this document. On the whole your
document makes about as much sense, and relies as much on undefined
terms, as your "meaning of life".

Your grammar is entirely incomprehensible, seeing as you made up the
notation as you went along and didn't explain it anywhere.

One part I can almost comprehend is the bit about parentheses - but:
what would it mean to put one item in parentheses? Or three? Since you
intend to group things so that one thing modifies one other thing, how
can n be anything other than 2?

But don't think of that as the most significant problem, because the rest
is just random ill-thought-out babbling. Let me quote:

"An operator is one or more idea words. It can be paired with one or
more idea words to form a list."

So, an operator is made of words, and a list is made of one operator and
some words. Did you intend this asymmetry in the definition of a list?

You describe how the words modify each other in a list. You don't describe
how the operator is modified. You also don't describe how the words
modify each other in the operator. I get the feeling that 'operator' and
'list' are actually supposed to be synonymous, in which case there was
no reason to define 'list' at all, let alone define it incorrectly.

Later on you interject random words like "standard derived".

I don't think this language could ever be used for any actual
communication, given your inability to even communicate the description
of the language. Perhaps, though, it could find a niche for usage, such
as enabling you to talk back to the voices in your head.

Have a nice day.

[1] HP49 Basic is a programming language for the HP49 calculator which
serves no purpose except to mollify people who want to program the
calculator yet have a morbid fear of Reverse Polish Notation. It is the
same as the calculator's RPN language, except rewritten with functions,
parentheses, and infix operators, with some arbitrary notation added on
to fake the existence of a stack. I am reminded of this by Thinkit's
after-the-fact "parentheses".

-- 
la rab.spir
noi pujeca djagau fi le zunsnu