Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!hao!oddjob!nucsrl!accuvax.nwu.edu!morrison
From: morrison@accuvax.nwu.edu.UUCP (Vance Morrison )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Perfect language features: how many languages?
Message-ID: <4000010@accuvax.nwu.edu.UUCP>
Date: 4 Feb 88 19:03:41 GMT
References: <10407@mimsy.UUCP>
Organization: Northwestern U, Evanston IL, USA
Lines: 53


This discussion seems to be on the subject at to whether it is
possible have a single unified language or not, and I would like
to put in my two cents worth.

	Several of you responded that the single language scenerio 
was impossible since the applications you need languages for are
so varied that a single language could not handle them all efficiently.

	In my opinion, this is a half-truth, bordering on being wrong.
An analogy was drawn between tools and programming languages, namely
in the same way as you use different tools to do different jobs, you
use different programming languages to do different types of programs.

I actually like the analogy of real tools to programming tools because
they are in fact very much alike.  But I think the above analogy should
not liken programming languages to individual tools, it should compare
them to a toolbox or a workshop.

	I have one toolbox (programming language) it has many different
types of tools in it (programming features, libraries etc).  I can do
a large variety of different jobs with the SAME toolbox because I simply
select the tools that are necessary for that job and ignore the rest.

	What I DON'T have, (But what I have to deal with every time
I program), are sets of tools that are 'glued' together and can only
be used together.   Because the tools are are 'glued' together, I have
to have many tools that do the same thing in every incompatible set.
Thus I have to learn many different ways of doing the same thing.


	So the essence of the one language approach is this:

	Every tool (programming feature) should be usable whenever it
	could be useful, and useing this feature does not require you
	to restrict the kinds of tools you use (that it it does not
	box you into a language that does not have some of the features
	you want.)

So in some ways this one language is in fact many special purpose languages
inside it.  What makes it different that many little languages is that 
the programmer can 'mix and match' ANY special purpose features to
solve the problem at hand.  

I believe such a unified language is technically possible (administration
is a whole different ball game), and in fact I am trying to design 
such a language right now.


					Vance Morrison
					morrison@accuvax.nwu.edu
					morrison@nuacc.bitnet
					morrison@northwestern.arpa