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From: corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Alan D Corre)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Re: What is ICON?
Message-ID: <1570@uwm.edu>
Date: 19 Dec 89 21:23:03 GMT
References: <8912182154.aa02781@s.s.ms.uky.edu>
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Reply-To: corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Alan D Corre)
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In my view, one of the most useful and characteristic features of Icon
is the string scanning facility (marked by the question mark "?")
which enables strings to be manipulated simply. In my recently
published book "Icon Programming for Humanists" I introduced this
feature right at the beginning since it can be utilized with a modest
understanding of the rest of the language. Another characteristic
feature (mentioned recently in this newsgroup) is the fact that
results of procedures can be used Boolean fashion, returning something
being equivalent to TRUE. There is a difference from Lisp however, in
that the return of a null value still counts as a "success".

An American visitor to London once commented to me that in that city
they erect railings to stop people from crossing the street mid-block.
She commented that in America we believe in freedom, so we allow
people to cross and kill themselves. Computer languages are a bit like
that. Pascal hems you in with railings. Snobol lets your programs blow
up. Icon, it seems to me, strikes a good balance between the Germanic
coercion of Pascal and the American permissiveness of Snobol.
--
Alan D. Corre
Department of Hebrew Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee                     (414) 229-4245
PO Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201               corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu