Re: [dev] Convert Suckless Projects Documentation to a More Simple Language

On 17 Jun 2010, at 11:15, Kris Maglione wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:59:25AM +0200, pancake wrote:
>> When i said toki pona..i was not joking..
>>
>> http://en.tokipona.org/
>>
>> you can index the dictionary with a byte.
>
> It might be alright as a pidgin, but as someone with pronounced
> logophilia, I'd tend find it insufferable. Beyond that, it by nature
> requires that things which can be said in other languages in one
> word. This does recommend it to technical writing.

I'd say I have a little logophillia myself, but I'd rather learn how
to combine few short words than memorise numerous long ones. In fact
it rather parallels how I'd rather use rc than bourne shell, plan 9
than posix.

I'm not sure Toki Pona is *it*, *the* language I'd really want to
learn, but on a brief look it has a certain elegance. Ha! I didn't
quite notice until just now, but:

> The name toki pona itself means "good language" or "simple language".

Somebody evidently believes simple is good. :)

On the flip side I'm a bit concerned by pona and pana being different
words. Those two would be hard to distinguish in some accents. "Good"
and "release" I can understand on the new-age theme, but certainly a
potential source of trouble. The other meanings of pana, "put" and
"cause" look like trouble too if confused with "good".

Also, the dictionary is barely half-done, which annoys me no end. :)

-- 
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. -- Alan Perlis