Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ubiquity
From: ubiquity@cs.utexas.edu (Richard Hoffman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: What makes a language "easy" to program in?
Summary: Short code for Long Operations
Message-ID: <2870@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 16 Jun 88 03:48:15 GMT
References: <3496@enea.se>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 32

In article <3496@enea.se>, sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
> Richard Harter (g-rh@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP) writes:
> >	As a side point, this examples illustrates a comon deficiency
> >in programming languages -- they force the user to specify too much.
> >What is wanted in this case is really something like
> >	for i in {0,...,n-1} a[i] = 0;
> >or even
> >	a = 0;
> 
> The ultimate winner is VAX-Pascal, though:
>        a := zero;
> The predefined function zero can be used to clear any array or record. 

In APL, one has (sort of): A<-(pA)p0
(Please read "<-" as a single character, "p" as a rho, and tilt your
head a little when you look at the "A"s :-) ).

And the much-maligned PL/I wins with: A=0;

Keystrokes: PL/I=4, APL=8; Pascal=8 (not counting spaces).  But of course,
in APL no previous declaration of "A" is necessary.

> >The best programming language only has one instruction:
> >
> >	"Do what I want"

Please don't give a copy of the compiler of that language to the
Pentagon.
-- 
Richard Hoffman / 5751 Valkeith / Houston, TX 77096 / (713) 729-5716
  +- / 12166 Metric Blvd., #122 / Austin,  TX 78757 / (512) 823-1822

"Malt does more than Milton can / To justify God's ways to Man." -- ??