Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bu.edu!m2c!jjmhome!smds!rh
From: rh@smds.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Kolstad's Konjecture
Summary: Perl -- Reductio Ad Absurdum?
Message-ID: <346@smds.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 91 06:47:37 GMT
References: <1991Feb22.211643.12151@linus.mitre.org> <1991Feb25.184544.20726@convex.com>
Organization: SMDS Inc., Concord, MA
Lines: 35

In article <1991Feb25.184544.20726@convex.com>, tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen) writes:
> From the keyboard of guido@cwi.nl (Guido van Rossum):
	[Plug for Python deleted]

> "Reasonable" is a matter of perspective, not fact.  For me, having
> whitespace be significant and using indentation for grouping are
> highly undesirable traits...

May I suggest that these traits and other differing traits are only
desirable or undesirable in the context of the overall design (if any)
of a language.  Despite the number of languages that have been created
it is actually very hard to do a good job of designing a language.  A
good language has a coherent style; the various features of the language
have to work together.  A given feature, such as using indentation for
grouping, imposes a lot of constraints on the other features of the
language.

> I guess it's time to throw out an idea I first hear from Rob Kolstad:

>     Kolstad's Konjecture: A new programming language will enjoy widespread
>     success in the UNIX community in direct proportion to that language's
>     resemblance to C; compare the relative success of awk, perl, and C++ 
>     with that of icon, scheme, and smalltalk.

This is very astute.  There is sort of a general UNIX style, or way of
writing things.  New ideas which are similar to familiar ideas are more
readily adopted.  Doing things "the UNIX way" has the advantage that the
UNIX way has been tested by experience and that there is a wide audience
that will adopt it readily.

-- 
Richard Harter, Software Maintenance and Development Systems, Inc.
Net address: jjmhome!smds!rh Phone: 508-369-7398 
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742
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