Mathematical Aspect

The mathematical aspect dictates that the language be elegant, but simple to describe mathematically. Lisp-like languages are an example of languages for which this aspect is especially noticeable.

Other ways to describe this aspect are to say that the language should have an inherent simplicity and be easy to learn, expressive and orthogonal. Expressiveness is the power of a language to solve problems. Orthogonality requires combinations of legal constructs to be themselves legal constructs. For example, if a user type of stack is created, and the language allows arrays, an array of stacks would also be allowed. This feature is somewhat related to the object-oriented concept polymorphism and to the concept of first-order languages.

Included in the mathematical aspect is the ability of the language's syntax and semantics to be described accurately and precisely