all 7 comments

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I think "else" was chosen because it was a shorter version of "otherwise". They basically mean the same thing, and it's a lot easier to type "else", so that's what they went with. Maybe not, but that would've been my course of action.

[–]sproketboy 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

Why is this on github? Never heard of a blog you stupid autist?

[–]grixit 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Cool. I had been under the impression that Lovelace had addressed conditionals. What terminology did she use?

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[removed]

    [–]Intuit 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    It's a question of what primitives to support in a language, what is expressive, and what is conducive to clear, maintainable programs. This stuff takes a lot of time to hammer out. Virtually all CPUs don't implement else, since if-then is sufficient to specify the else (if X then Y, where Y skips Z which is only done if not X).

    [–]eh-non-plus 0 insightful - 1 fun0 insightful - 0 fun1 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    function true(true, false){ return true(); }
    function false(true, false){ return false(); }
    function if_then_else_(condition, fa, fb) { return condition(fa, fb); }