Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!otter!sjmz
From: sjmz@otter.HP.COM (Stefek Zaba)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Re: Perfect language features (Discussions of languages)
Message-ID: <2400001@otter.HP.COM>
Date: 15 Jan 88 18:42:54 GMT
References: <3928@ames.arpa>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories,Bristol,UK.
Lines: 29

OK, this notestring is doomed to generate all heat and no light.... BUT....
eugene maya made a plug for John Bentley's "Little Languages" idea.  Sorry to
both of you, but I'm personally convinced that That Way Madness Lies.  What it
means is that for EVERY application, you have to learn a NEW D**N Little
Language.  After a while this gets REALLY tedious; "how do I simulate a WHILE
loop in this one?  what's the syntax for conditionals?  You mean it DOESN'T
support conditionals!? [like all those how-to-log-on Little Languages for
terminal emulators don't] what do I do for a table-.driven abstraction here?
[try doing THAT in csh, and discovering the limit on total number of chars
in an indexed expression...]"

Restrains self from producing further examples by tremendous effort of will.

Sorry, I want *one* language, with extensible syntax for special jobs.  I want
it in *one* computing environment.  I want that environment to support stuff
like document preparation, access to the worlds of more or less structured
data out there Somewhere...

And it's not just a hardened Programmer type like me who wants to tailor and
extend.  You ask some longer-term users of stuff like word processors if
there's any little changes they'd like to make... chances are they'll describe
some reprogramming to you.  Look at LOTUS's success - I'd bet a significant
proportion (>20%) of users use Macros some time or other.

Finally a plug: the nearest thing to a usable environment-and-prog-lang I know
is POPLOG, from UnivOfSussexUK / Systems Designers.  OK, now I'll get the
asbestos suit on.   Sigh.  Goodnight.

stefek zaba (sjmz%hplb@hplabs.hp.com, let's say...)