Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!rice!news
From: preston@ariel.rice.edu (Preston Briggs)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: standard extensions
Message-ID: <1991Feb16.235050.8231@rice.edu>
Date: 16 Feb 91 23:50:50 GMT
References: <14814@lanl.gov>
Sender: news@rice.edu (News)
Organization: Rice University, Houston
Lines: 44

hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:

>What is needed in addition is a language which allows
>the introduction of operator syntax according to the
>user's desires.

This is a hard thing.  People have been fooling with it for years
and haven't gotten very useful results.  The Lisp community
(especially the Schemers) are probably the most advanced,
but many people seem unwilling to accept the parentheses and other overhead.

>Wirth is being employed to design and develop languages and
>related things.

This doesn't seem quite right.
He's a professor, and certainly tenured.
I expect he works on what he likes.

>For Montgomery or Silverman or me to produce the language would be
>more than asking an individual automotive designer to do everything
>from idea to prototype without any assistance whatever.  

But individuals have designed and implemented languages (also cars).
However, I agree that it's pretty hard and very time consuming.
My point was supposed to be something like:

	There is no exclusive club.

	Language designers are doing it because they want to.

	No one is paid to design languages
		(Ada and COBOL are probably counterexamples)

	A person designing a language is has
		a problem he's trying to solve.

	He doen't care about anyone else; 
		he's got too many problems as is.

Actually, I'd be concerned about someone designing a language
to another's specifications:

	If he's such a good language designer,
	why isn't he working on his own language?