it&#x27;s obvious that computer scientists have COMPLETELY dropped the ball by not figuring out a way for anyone to write &quot;it&quot;, &quot;that&quot;, &quot;which&quot; and so on and have the IDE and language disambiguate it into what you were JUST talking about.  This is stuff that my great-grandparents should have been suggesting some time after Ada Lovelace wrote about the analytical engine in 1842 or 1843.  Not something I should be writing about in 2016.  Yeah, okay, before always-on Internet it might make sense to have a small, unambiguous, self-contained grammar.  The same is not true in 2016.<p>Here&#x27;s how you calculate the absolute value of an integer:
-&gt; &quot;if it&#x27;s non-negative, return it; if it&#x27;s negative return its opposite&quot;.<p>Here&#x27;s how you calculate the absolute value of an integer if you&#x27;re using any programming language written in 60 years:
-&gt; &quot;if (argument &lt;= 0) return argument; else return argument * -1.&quot;  (or some variation)<p>There is literally no way to refer to &quot;it&quot; instead of &quot;argument&quot; except by changing &quot;argument&quot; to read &quot;a&quot; (or &quot;i&quot; or &quot;x&quot; or &quot;$_&quot; or...)<p>My point is that it&#x27;s literally impossible to write &quot;if (it &gt; =0) return it; else return (it * -1)&quot; if you&#x27;ve just mentioned &quot;it&quot; and you are there to check and correct the IDE if it&#x27;s wrong.  (Oh, wait, I should write &quot;to correct the IDE if the IDE is wrong.&quot;)<p>I bet 90% of human languages have a way to refer to something you&#x27;ve JUST mentioned without repeating a word for it.  (Words like it, that, etc.)  I bet 0% of computer languages let you write &quot;it&quot; for the last thing you just referred to, even if there is literally 1 choice in the whole function, as in my absolute value example.<p>Ridiculous!