Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!harrier.ukc.ac.uk!eagle.ukc.ac.uk!rej
From: rej@ukc.ac.uk (R.E.Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Expression Based Language
Message-ID: <6211@eagle.ukc.ac.uk>
Date: 3 Jan 89 11:20:50 GMT
References: <3300001@uxg.cso.uiuc.edu> <3290002@hpctdls.HP.COM> <4505@xenna.Encore.COM> <2583@ficc.uu.net> <9310@ihlpb.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: rej@ukc.ac.uk (R.E.Jones)
Organization: Computing Lab, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
Lines: 15

In article <9310@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes:
>This won't work too well in (full) C.  The problem is that pure
>expression-based languages (like LISP) tend to be typeless as well.

Modern functional languages tend to be strongly typed.

>Having to return a specific data type severely limits the usefulness of making
>control-flow constructs (if, switch, for, etc.) expression-oriented.

Quite right ... IF you have to return a specific data type. However, modern
functional languages like Miranda, employ a polymorphic type discipline.
One therefore gets all the benefits of more powerful combining forms without
having to rewrite essentially the same code for each specific data type.

Richard Jones.