Subject: [lojban] Re: What the heck is this crap?

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 03:30:37 -0000

Robin:
> On Tue, Nov 05, 2002 at 11:59:48PM -0000, And Rosta wrote:
> > I don't see why you're reacting with such horror. People are always
> > discovering issues like this that nobody has thought of before. It's
> > inevitable that this happens
>
> Because these are fundamental changes to the semantics of the language
> as used by people who actually converse in it
>
> (Duh?)

Okay, but what are you saying? That it's inevitable that you will
react with horror when we find (as we inevitably and continually do)
some problem that hasn't been noticed hitherto?

It simply isn't possible to invent 100% of a fully-fledged language
from scratch, document it completely, and only then turn it over to
the users. It needs to be explored -- 'beta-tested', I believe it's
called with software. We're kind of at the debugging stage, and will
be for the foreseeable future, though discovery of problem cases will
hopefully get increasingly rare.

Either we go the two-dialect (Hard and Soft Lojban) route that Lojbab
and Nick have talked about, where Soft Lojban (= Naturalist Lojban)
is shaped by the usage of people who actually converse in it and Hard
Lojban is shaped by continuation of the established principles of Lojban
grammar, or we accept that we are all just in the process of learning
the language, and make mistakes, especially in spontaneous conversation,
where mistakes are the norm even for native speakers. As far as I'm
concerned, that choice is yours and I have no desire to make it for
you.

--And.