Xref: utzoo comp.object:1458 comp.lang.misc:5155
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From: db@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Dave Berry)
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Objective-C review
Message-ID: <5156@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 13 Jul 90 15:46:20 GMT
References: <1638@dinl.mmc.UUCP> <1690@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl> <5239@stpstn.UUCP> <55443@microsoft.UUCP> <5281@stpstn.UUCP> <55517@microsoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: db@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Dave Berry)
Organization: Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U
Lines: 25

In article <55517@microsoft.UUCP> jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) writes:
>Well, perhaps you can suggest a simple language friendly to the neophtye
>programmer that can be used for large commercial projects?

You can find some useful ideas in Standard ML.  This is taught as a first
language by several colleges, and is also being used for large commercial
projects.

The reason it works is that it's expression based, so integers, functions
and modules can all be typed straight to the system (usually an incremental
compiler).  Neophytes can write simple programs without having to write
module interfaces and the like.

Also, the core language (i.e. the non-module part) uses type inference,
so people don't even have to specify the types of their variables.  Mistakes
occasionally cause confusing error messages, at least with existing
implementations, but in many ways type inference is a win.

I'm not claimning that Standard ML will meet your every need.  But some
of its features do seem to support the distinction between large and
small projects.  If you're interested in that, I'd recommend taking a look.

 Dave Berry, LFCS, Edinburgh Uni.      db%lfcs.ed.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk

	"ML don't stand for nothing!  ML *is* ML"  -- Spike Lee.