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From: raymond@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov.arpa (Eric Raymond  RIA)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Is ICON higher level than Prolog?
Summary: You call this high level ?-)
Message-ID: <13919@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Date: 26 Aug 88 21:05:03 GMT
References: <6797@megaron.arizona.edu>
Sender: usenet@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Reply-To: raymond@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Eric Raymond  RIA)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 16

In article <6797@megaron.arizona.edu> gudeman@arizona.edu (David Gudeman) writes:
>I don't know how much the author knows about Icon, but Icon is like
>Prolog in that an experienced programmer can get a lot more
>performance out of the language by knowledge of the implementation.

And you call this a high level language?

Of course I know why you call it "high level".  Don't flame about that.
I know that optimization is always (usually) a tradeoff for clarity.  Don't
flame about that, either.  What I'm complaining about is a language which
depends upon knowledge of its internal implementation (as opposed to some
abstract (intuitive) specification).  This is further aggravated when this
optimization is global in extent.  A truly high level language would
localize the optimization.  (Easier said than done, but let's look ahead.
Remember, "High Level" is a relative term.)

Eric A. Raymond  - NASA Ames Research Center - raymond@pluto.arc.nasa.gov