Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!lll-winken!aunro!alberta!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!rice!news!gateley From: gateley@rice.edu (John Gateley) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: scheme [Re: What does an anti-perl look like] Message-ID: Date: 22 Jun 91 06:11:23 GMT References: <2714@amix.commodore.com> Sender: news@rice.edu (News) Organization: Rice University Lines: 34 In-Reply-To: skrenta@amix.commodore.com's message of 21 Jun 91 16:01:37 GMT In article <2714@amix.commodore.com> skrenta@amix.commodore.com (Rich Skrenta) writes: But given equal proficiency, could a programmer debug a similar algorithm implemented in Algol or Forth faster? How about C vs. Assembly? Scheme vs. teco? As much as it may surprise you, Scheme is a descendent of Algol. And as much as it may suprise you, the best environment for coding/debugging in any language I have ever seen was for Scheme/Common Lisp (the TI Explorer, though scheme is not publically available). It's possible that the Magical Power of Lisp-like-languages outweighs the disadvantages of folding every syntactic construct onto the pattern f(a b c). I'm suspicious, though. The Scheme crowds' arguments sound an awful lot like all of the excuses I heard for using Forth. Your pattern is wrong - it should be (f a b c). But you have missed a lot: Scheme syntax is simple ( argument ...), but that is only one small feature of the language. You can write "the magical power of lisp" into a C style language if you choose, or you can write a more restrictive version of "lisp" which is basically equivalent to C but uses prefix notation. So what - its only syntax. No, I'm not a Scheme zealot, I just don't like to see a language trashed because of misunderstanding or dislike of a single feature. John gateley@rice.edu -- "I've thought the thoughts of little children and the thoughts of men I've thought the thoughts of stupid people who have never been so much in love as they should be and got confused too easily to fall in love again." The Residents and Renaldo and the Loaf