Talk:Guarded Command Language

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[edit] Wrong title?

Guarded Commands are building blocks of the Guarded Command Language, not the name of the language. Reference: EWD472 The Dutch version of this article already uses the name Guarded Command Language. I'm not a regular contributor, and only vaguely familiar with guidelines for such changes. Can someone review this? DaanS 15:00, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments
  • You can do the move without formal vote or administrator intervention as it's not highly controversial and the target page doesn't exist. However, we could discuss why the proposed name would be more appropriate. In the given paper, my eyes didn't catch the phrase "Guarded Command Language". FOLDOC has an article on "Dijkstra's guarded command language". --TuukkaH 20:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I was unsure about controversiality since Guarded Commands is commonly used to name the language even though it's incorrect as far as I know. EWD472 doesn't use Guarded Command Language, but does state that Guarded Commands are building blocks. The main problem is that, as far as I know, the language was never "officially" named by it's creator -DaanS 21:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
If the language wasn't named officially, wouldn't the commonly used name make sense? Guarded Commands as an abbreviation for the Language of guarded commands doesn't sound incorrect to me. --TuukkaH 22:53, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually, both are commonly used names. My problems with Guarded Commands are (1) ambiguity between the language and the construct, and (2) the use of Guarded Command Language to denote the language by Dijkstra's former peers at the Eindhoven University of Technology. I'll admit though that (2) is easily countered. -DaanS 00:05, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, consensus here on the move or not? —Nightstallion (?) 09:01, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, moved as proposed. --TuukkaH 11:21, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The usage of "=" and ":=" seems inconsistent, leading to confusion. Dijkstra used ":=" exclusively for assignment ("becomes") and he used the symbol "=" exclusively for the assertion of equality, thus avoiding confusion. --User: RobertH 18:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and fixed. --81.77.124.59 13:25, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] is this if necessary?

  test -> expression

is same as if

   test-> expression

fi is there *any* reason to keep if fi pair if C as the conditino is already a test ;) ? and it seems like only in blocks where is cycle it is needed;) 84.16.123.194 (talk) 02:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] is this if necessary?

  test -> expression

is same as

 if
   test-> expression
 fi

is there *any* reason to keep if fi pair if C as the conditino is already a test ;) ? and it seems like only in blocks where is cycle it is needed;) 84.16.123.194 (talk) 02:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC) hey why this if fi is not in do od thing:) the idea about having it all in blocks is neat but it is kind of not constistent here in wikiarticle + you might share few characters(6;) by removing unnecessary if fi thing + you would not clone it (~ i am cloning here myself ;) i am gonna change it. comment it somehow then 84.16.123.194 (talk) 02:37, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is necessary, that is simply the syntax. test -> expression is not the same as if test-> expression fi!

if G \rightarrow S fi

is equal to abort if G ≡ False, but

G \rightarrow S

just by itself is undefined. You can only use G \rightarrow S inside either an if..fi or do..od construct.85.145.103.163 (talk) 18:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)