Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!spdcc!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: What makes a language "easy" to program in?
Message-ID: <4622@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: 20 Jun 88 00:08:59 GMT
References: <3496@enea.se> <5158@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 21

In article <5158@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> budd@mist.UUCP (Tim Budd) writes:
>There was a Lisp system once that had something called DWIM (do what I mean).
>... Problem was there was no feedback

Indeed.  I have no objection to languages that warn about questionable things
before continuing with a best guess.  I dislike FORTRAN's implicit declaration
rules (modern implementations have a way to shut them off), and C's acceptance
of array notation when declaring a formal parameter.  And that silly rule in
BASIC that all undeclared arrays have size 10...

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint
________
Quaxity quuxity,
Teitelman's InterLISP
Has a DWIM feature that's
Really a screw;
MacLISP has evident
Superiority,
Letting its customer
Mean what he do.
  --The Great Quux