Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!herald.usask.ca!alberta!obed!lnds
From: lnds@obed.uucp (Mark Israel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Algol68
Message-ID: <1991Mar24.121900.7141@cs.UAlberta.CA>
Date: 24 Mar 91 12:19:00 GMT
References: <chl.668272227@m1> <9168@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1991Mar22.013748.4944@ico.isc.com> <46036@ut-emx.uucp>
Sender: userisra@mts.ucs.ualberta.ca
Reply-To: userisra@mts.ucs.ualberta.ca (Mark Israel)
Organization: University of Alberta
Lines: 20

In article <46036@ut-emx.uucp>, hasan@ut-emx.uucp (David A. Hasan) writes:

> And Ada is *full* of gotchas... at least Algol68 was orthogonal.

   Algol68 is full of gotchas.  Try explaining to a new user why
you can't say "a[i] +:= 1", where a is a flex array.  Try explaining
why operators scope differently from procedures.  Try explaining
why "exit" is defined so that in the context where you'd intuitively
most often want to use it (IF something THEN EXIT FI), it does
nothing at all.

   APL is full of gotchas.  Since "," catenates and "+/A" adds
the elements of A, might you not reasonably expect ",/A" to
catenate the elements of A?  No, sir.

   My observation is, "Languages that are supposed to be highly
consistent... aren't."

				Mark Israel
I have heard the Wobble!	userisra@mts.ucs.ualberta.ca