David Megginson writes: > It looks like Python's days are numbered; I just read on Slashdot > about a programming language that uses *only* whitespace: > > http://compsoc.dur.ac.uk/whitespace/ > > I expect that most current Python programmers will have switched over > by the end of the year. > > Any die-hard fanatics left over will no doubt write a Punctuation > programming language, using only the characters [EMAIL PROTECTED]&*() (above 0-9 > on the U.S. keyboard), as a pure act of spite to try to split the Perl > community.
One real advantage of this langauge is that it's source files compress really well. This can save a lot of disk space, especially with a project the size of Flight/Sim/TerraGear. As soon as the wsfront utility is finished, we could seriously consider porting the entire project over. Compile times can really benefit too. WS doesn't use tokens as part of it's syntax, and a large portion of a typical compiler is devoted to parsing tokens, hashing them, and ultimately just translating them into a number anyway. WS skips this entire level of indirection which can be a huge performance boost and can drastically reduce the compiler's memory foot print. This also enables the programmer to write much more direct and straightforward code. The only issue I can see up front is on windows ... typically windows will misinterpret certain combinations of white space characters. This could be one slightly sticky problem, at least until MS fixes this bug. Speaking of which, WS sneakily avoids another major bug in windows. Because it doesn't directly use characters, it avoids windows problems with lack of case sensitivety, and isn't affected by it's tendency to change certain capitalizations. Best of all WS is intuitive and not encumbered by huge unwieldy standards bodies who drag their heels on every good idea or who try to lock you into proprietary solutions. Some groups are complaining that the name of this language isn't culturally neutral. They are suggesting perhaps "BackSpace" would be a better name since this is often the most frequently used character in the WhiteSpace language. We'll have to keep on eye on the development of this language. If nothing else we could use it as our default embedded scripting language. Regards, Curt. -- Curtis Olson IVLab / HumanFIRST Program FlightGear Project Twin Cities [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt http://www.flightgear.org _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
