Known Quote by Kenneth E. Iverson

Most programming languages are decidedly inferior to mathematical notation and are little used as tools of thought in ways that would be considered significant…

— Kenneth E. Iverson

I was eventually persuaded of the need to design programming notations so as to maximize the number of errors which cannot be made, or…

— Tony Hoare

Although mathematical notation undoubtedly possesses parsing rules, they are rather loose, sometimes contradictory, and seldom clearly stated. [...] The proliferation of programming languages shows…

— Kenneth E. Iverson

The precision provided (or enforced) by programming languages and their execution can identify lacunas, ambiguities, and other areas of potential confusion in conventional [mathematical]…

— Kenneth E. Iverson

The establishment of formal standards for proofs about programs... and the proposal that the semantics of a programming language may be defined independently of…

— Robert W. Floyd

There cannot be a language more universal and more simple, more free from errors and obscurities...more worthy to express the invariable relations of all…

— Joseph Fourier

If it is to be effective as a tool of thought, a notation must allow convenient expression not only of notions arising directly from…

— Kenneth E. Iverson

Von Neumann languages do not have useful properties for reasoning about programs. Axiomatic and denotational semantics are precise tools for describing and understanding conventional…

— John Backus

With the computer and programming languages, mathematics has newly-acquired tools, and its notation should be reviewed in the light of them. The computer may,…

— Kenneth E. Iverson

Requirements in mathematical language are no use unless they are easier to read than the code.

— David Parnas

We have also obtained a glimpse of another crucial idea about languages and program design. This is the approach of statified design, the notion…

— Hal Abelson

The most important precedents deal with the whole idea of symbolic programming - the notion of setting up symbolic expressions that can represent anything…

— Stephen Wolfram