Ian Wood wrote:
An essay I just came across which I thought might be particularly
appropriate for this list.
http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html
"If I had only looked over at the other makers, the painters or the
architects, I would have realized that there was a name for what I was
doing: sketching. As far as I can tell, the way they taught me to
program in college was all wrong. You should figure out programs as
you're writing them, just as writers and painters and architects do.
Realizing this has real implications for software design. It means
that a programming language should, above all, be malleable. A
programming language is for thinking of programs, not for expressing
programs you've already thought of. It should be a pencil, not a pen.
Static typing would be a fine idea if people actually did write
programs the way they taught me to in college. But that's not how any
of the hackers I know write programs. We need a language that lets us
scribble and smudge and smear, not a language where you have to sit
with a teacup of types balanced on your knee and make polite
conversation with a strict old aunt of a compiler."
Sounds like a good description of Runrev to me...
Ian
_______________________________________________
Very Good!
The thing I really like about RunRev is that there are almost always 3
or 4 ways to achieve something.
I normally 'write' the most important bits of my programming when I am
asleep; and when I awake
I have the algorithm in my head in a sort of amorphous form which I then
program in RunRev,
norammly, also, fairly amorphously. But, RunRev is fairly forgiving and
tolerates my amorphisms,
gently nudges me when they are too far off the beaten track, and treats
me gently.
It always escapes me why people want to program is "real programming
languages"; i.e. ones
that are horribly strict, look like telephone bills, and when one comes
back to them 3 years
later nothing makes any sense at all.
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