
[pdf] If You’re Not Writing a Program, Don’t Use a Programming Language - scscsc
http://bulletin.eatcs.org/index.php/beatcs/article/download/539/532
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andreareina
Since it's not clear from the title, this is a paper by Leslie Lamport (of
TLA+ and Lamport Clock fame) about using mathematical notation to describe
algorithms.

Editor's introduction: In this column, Leslie Lamport makes the case for using
the language of mathematics for describing algorithms. He argues that students
should learn to think mathematically when writing code and programs. The
column is a special issue and collaboration of the distributed computing
column and the education column. Enjoy!

Abstract: The need to handle large programs and to produce efficient compiled
code adds complexity to programming languages and limits their expressiveness.
Algorithms are not programs, and they can be expressed in a simpler and more
expressive language. That language is the one used by almost every branch of
science and engineering to precisely describe and reason about the objects
they study: the language of mathematics. Math is useful for describing a more
general class of algorithms than are studied in algorithm courses.

