In
<a90e503c23f97441b05ee302853b0e62901977c...@fspas01ev010.fspa.myntet.se>,
on 10/01/2013
at 01:23 PM, Thomas Berg <[email protected]> said:
>Personally I am of the opinion that a programming language is for the
>benefit of the programmer, to be least "hindered" in the coding.
Short term or long term?
>It should help the coding and minimize both syntax pondering and
>keystrokes.
IMHO it's more important that the code be readable than that it be
brief.
>A programming language should not have a role of disciplining the
>programmer.
We'll have to agree to disagree. A language should certainly not be a
straight jacket, but I view catching errors early on to be assisting
me rather than disciplining me.
>If the program is not correct the additional effort caused by that
>is not exceeding what would be caused by a "disciplining" language
>in the same case.
Do you consider Ada to be a "disciplining" language? I certainly
didn't find its consistency requirements to be an impediment to
writing my code.
>Note that a bad programmer makes bad programs regardless of the
>language he uses.
Yes, but a language with booby traps makes it worse. Take C - please!
>If I take REXX as an example, although it has its limitations and
>rough edges, it have 4 important advantages IMHO:
I like REXX, and have done a lot of scripting in it, but there are
significant issues with it.
>1. It lives up the principle of "least astonishment" in syntax.
I am astonished that you could say that (-;
REXX look enough like PL/I to trip up those with PL/I "finger macros".
and has features that seem to continually trip up the newbies.
>2. Its functionality and syntax is oriented towards the end goal of
>the code effort.
The same could be said for any language; its syntax and semantics are
designed around the particular tasks that the language developers had
in mind. There are things that can be done easily in CLIST that cannot
be done in REXX, and I find myself writing a lot of Perl despite the
warts because its functionality is much more helpful for my goals.
>4. It minimizes the keystrokes for the programmer.
Not compared to APL ;-)
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
Atid/2 <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)
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