By Benson H. Scheff
Communications of the ACM,
April 1966,
Vol. 9 No. 4, Pages 258-266
10.1145/365278.365297
Comments
For the nonprogrammer, difficulty in using a language increases rapidly with the number of nonproblem-oriented conventions. A simple language, even if inelegant, which considers the user's background as part of the problem may be more effective than a source language containing subtle and more powerful capabilities.
The language described in this paper is used to write computer programs which test electronic equipment. Because this testing process contains few complex ideas, there is little need for the elegance and redundancy of a highly syntax-oriented language. A simple and direct language will suffice for the problem. The eventual users of this language are military depot personnel who cannot be expected to have computer programming skill or significant programming training. For this nonprogramming-oriented user, it was essential to create a language using familiar engineering statements; programming-oriented conventions would have unnecessarily complicated his task.
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