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From: gateley@m2.csc.ti.com (John Gateley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Anyone want to design a language?
Message-ID: <111523@ti-csl.csc.ti.com>
Date: 20 Feb 90 19:09:36 GMT
References: <22569:05:10:24@stealth.acf.nyu.edu> <8475@wpi.wpi.edu> <111355@ti-csl.csc.ti.com> <447@fwi.uva.nl>
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In article <447@fwi.uva.nl> freek@fwi.uva.nl (Freek Wiedijk) writes:
>In article <111355@ti-csl.csc.ti.com> gateley@m2.csc.ti.com (John Gateley)
>writes:
>> [Introduces Lisp style syntax]
>Ehrm, no, I don't like this, because it is too verbose:
>
>[character counts deleted]
>
>Your solution has two-and-a-half times as many characters!  In my
>opinion the main advantage of C with respect to Pascal, is that C
>enables you to write "int" where Pascal forces you to say "integer" :-)

If you are worried about character counts, you can abbreviate
the words I spelled out in my example, that takes care of some.
However, as long as the verbosity does not clutter the language (as is
the case with cobol, though some will probably argue that), I feel that
it should not be an issue. You can always custom build an editor with
macros to do your typing for you.

>Also, I don't like this amount of parentheses:
>      (+= r (foo q)))))
>I know that you can let the editor handle it, but it still confuses me.

This is the main complaint I have heard with Lisp style syntax. However,
after a few sessions with the editor to learn how to use it, the confusion
goes away. Each paren has a matching paren, thats not confusing, its wondering
which paren goes with which when you see )))))) that makes you feel confused.
However, with automatic indenting (no human mistakes), things line up
nicely, and with the editor to jump from any paren to its partner, life
becomes easy.

John
gateley@m2.csc.ti.com