I was flipping through the second installation of Joel's "On Software" blog-in-a-book and came across a part named as the subject here:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/01.html It was funny in a number of ways. It didn't actually mention any decent particular languages that did "that" (apart from JavaScript used in examples) -- the top sought feature was actually ability to pass functions as parameters: a feature present as early as LISP, but which made a mainstream language C stand out and lacking in Pascal, and possibly a stone thrown at Java. Whereas the point was to show a few fairly simplistic examples of functional programming, it took quite many pages of code and text to basically convey what in J can be expressed as generalization of +/ to v/ . Finally, it's just one example of how this whole book is stream of condescending chatter about really trivial things for anyone familiar with the subject. Or is it an attempt to reach out to the masses of uninitiated? But the question is if they haven't been interested so far, would they ever care? In many guides and sources regarding programming style, good practices, etc little or no distinction is made about the target audience: different categories or levels of programmers. In fact, to be optimally productive they may need or must not take specific approaches to programming. Yes, and too much information may be harmful, eg Hoare's "premature optimization" harm may simply result in just "not getting it right" effect. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
