On 3/1/2012 10:25 AM, Martin Baldan wrote:
Yes, namespaces provide a form of "jargon", but that's clearly not
enough. If it were, there wouldn't be so many programming languages.
You can't use, say, Java imports to turn Java into Smalltalk, or
Haskell or Nile. They have different syntax and different semantics.
But in the end you describe the syntax and semantics with natural
language. I was wondering about using a powerful controlled language,
with a backend of, say, OWL-DL, and a suitable syntax defined using
some tool like GF (or maybe OMeta?).
as for Java:
this is due in large part to Java's lack of flexibility and expressiveness.
but, for a language which is a good deal more flexible than Java, why not?
I don't think user-defined syntax is strictly necessary, but things
would be very sad and terrible if one were stuck with Java's syntax
(IMO: as far as C-family languages go, it is probably one of the least
expressive).
a better example I think was Lisp's syntax, where even if at its core
fairly limited, and not particularly customizable (apart from reader
macros or similar), still allowed a fair amount of customization via macros.
but, anyways, yes, the "language" problem is still a long way from
solved, and so instead it is a constant stream of new languages trying
to improve things here and there vs the ones which came before.
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