I do not actually understand the efforts to improve the spad compiler, as I do not understand compilers at all. However, aldor seems to provide quite a bit of what you want (better error messages etc) and much more, as Ralf will advocate ;-)).
I only advocate reading the manual and maybe asking Stephen Watt to free the Aldor compiler. ;-)
I think that Haskell is quite a bit different from SPAD. Haskell is functional, SPAD is not. Haskell has pattern matching SPAD has not. You should maybe also look at DoCon http://www.haskell.org/docon/ and look why (to my knowledge) it was/is not very much in use.
Indeed Haskell is an entirely different world. However, I have to object that functional programming languages are not used. There are industrial applications (even own programming languages like `erlang' (Erikson language)). Here in my department and person seems to have haskell running and they use it (for nearly everything you can (and cannot) imagine)<grin>
Oh, you misinterpreted my paragraph. That "is not very much in use" referred only to DoCon. To my understanding that was (is?) an attempt to build something like a mathematical hierarchy in Haskell.
Functional programming in general should actually be well suited for mathematics, since mathematics speaks about functions and functors and what not. But there it's hard to incorporate side effects, like changing the entry of a huge matrix. As a mathematician one doesn't care, but bringing mathematics into the field of computation is not just using a functional programming language. There are things like changing an entry in a matrix that can become cumbersome or impossible in a functional language except that one copies the whole matrix or uses other constructs like monads in Haskell.
Pondering a bit about it... Changing a matrix entry can be done quickly even in a functional language, if one somehow gives the additional information "I will never ever use my input again (so you can re-use that storage)". But it's questionable that this will fit into a purely functional style.
But I agree with Ralf, Haskell and spad are far too different. Perhaps all this `we-need-a-better-compiler-in-axiom' mails should be cc-ed to Steven Watt's, maybe just the desire to get his inbox free again may help to free aldor? If not the apparent need for aldor in axiom convinces him.
;-) Ralf -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FriCAS - computer algebra system" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/fricas-devel?hl=en.
