"not [quite] more i squared" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Adam DePrince wrote:
Given the hardware constraints of the early 1980s, which language do you think should have been used instead of BASIC?
Lisp Forth
Exactly my pick
Logo (my pick) has been called "Lisp without the parenthesis". It has the advantage of using standard algebraic notation for formulas, instead of operator post or pre.
<mike
I'd rather say "Lisp ashamed of S-expressions". Well, mind you, I've nothing against infix notation but my experience with Logo is that in Logo's case it is an ugly fixture getting in the way. I say "ugly" because the real beauty of lisp is with manipulating code as data - and the utter simplicity with which this can be done in pure lisp is imo much more valuable than the (relative !!) simplicity of the transform from standard mathematical notation to Logo infix expression syntax.
Don't get me wrong, I did write non-trivial amounts of code in Logo and had some fun, in some implementations it is a quite usable language, but nevertheless its design/aesthetics angers me, like... well like Basic, or crippleware. Even the turtle graphics... if Guido was Papert there would be no "complex" type in Python. Sorry, I find it difficult to express, maybe you get my drift -
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