Mats Nygren wrote:
> 
> Paul,
> 
> Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:
> > .. XML .. interpretation .. natural language ..
> 
> I agree in the general direction and in every detail of your posting.
> 
> If you havn't already, read "A course in general linguistics" by
> Ferdinand de Saussure. For the purposes of this discussion skip the
> parts about diacrony and concentrate on syncrony. He is a great thinker. 

Thanks for the pointer. After some searching, a general summary is
available here:
   http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/saussure.html
An outline of ideas is available here:
  http://www.public.iastate.edu/~dkain/crit/saustext.html#concepts

Still need to digest them though and find the links to the original (if
availble on-line).

One interesting tidbit from the outline: "Value saves language from
being simply a naming process. Terms are interdependent and derive their
value from the presence of other terms."

> (And then there is Wittgenstein ..)
Some starter URLS: 
  http://www.ags.uci.edu/~bcarver/ludwig.html
  http://www.hd.uib.no/wab/

I liked Wittgenstein's "The Blue and Brown Books" in college. My college
advisor advised me to stay away from it at that time as he said
something like he was afraid I'd end up thinking too much like him (was
that Wittgenstein or my advisor?). I can barely remember those readings
now. I should peruse them again.

> </mats>
> <ps>Visitor & CCodeGeneration etc. I'm looking forward to elaborating this,
> together with all interested</ps>

Great. Marcel Weiher <marcel at metaobject.com> posted some refactored code
"[ENH] CodeGen as Visitor" involving Smalltalk to Objective-C
transcoding. I think something amazing is brewing.

-Paul Fernhout
Kurtz-Fernhout Software 
=========================================================
Developers of custom software and educational simulations
Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com