Hi, Is a language I program in necessarily limiting in its expressibility?
Is there an optimum methodology of expressing algorithms (ie nomenclature)? Is there a good or bad way of expressing intent? Are there any intent languages in existence? Are there any pattern or algorithm languages? Is a programming language necessarily these two combined? These are the questions I've been finding myself pondering lately. For example, expressing object oriented concepts and patterns in C, while possible, proves rather "uncomfortable". Some things are almost impossible unless one "builds a world" inside C, but this is essentially building another language and using C as the meta-platform for this language, no? This would have to do with the fact that the design intent of the language didn't have this as its original intent, surely? Is there a way of patterning a language of programming such that it can extend itself infinitely, innately? Was smalltalk the first attempt at this? Does it fail by being too "large" in structural organisation? In other words, would a "language" (or exploratory platform for programming) inherently require being "ridiculously simple" in terms of its structure in order to fully be able to represent any other "language" (or rather than language, simply more complicated structures) clearly? Is Ometa an example of this? Julian. _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list [email protected] http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
