Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!stealth.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd
From: brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Anyone want to design a language?
Message-ID: <4623:05:31:06@stealth.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 19 Feb 90 05:31:07 GMT
References: <22569:05:10:24@stealth.acf.nyu.edu> <12507@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com>
Reply-To: brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Organization: IR
Lines: 46

In article <12507@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com> kjj@varese.UUCP (Kevin Johnson) writes:
> Rhetorical question: Aren't you talking about C++?

Of course not. C++ isn't even close to perfect.

Isn't there some change you'd like to make to C++ so that you'd like
programming even better than you do now? Fine, say so. Then iterate.
Hopefully almost everyone's wishes will be synthesized into this new,
still-to-be-named language. (Now there's a name: FOO. Naaah, people
might remember what foo stands for, and lots of young urban CS types
will think it stands for something object oriented.)

> Semi-rhetorical question: What would be this language's intended use?

Similar to C. It will have the ``low-level'' features of C so that
it's appropriate for systems programming, but there's no particular
focus. (I use UNIX C for complex numerical programming, so I may be
biased.)

> 1. How about string operators.
> 	I hate handling allocing of space for something silly like strings...

This is mainly a library problem (though a good syntax helps).

> 2. Ability to dynamically define new operators

Expand. What exactly do you want? We're not talking p-code, you know.
Are you looking for something that can't be implemented on top of the
language?

> 3. Ability to use existing C libraries and headers.

At least to interface with the loader the same as other languages. As
for headers: one of the first standard applications will be a program to
convert C function prototypes to this language. (Having the same macro
processing is too much to ask, because C's macro processor is so
limited. But most libraries do fine with just the function interface.)
It would be nice if the language could compile to C, but it already
looks like C just isn't powerful enough.

> 	Seriously, I would consider the ability to link in existing
> 	libraries, one way or another, an absolute must.

I agree.

---Dan