chandra@cs.tamu.edu (Chandrasekaran Periannan) (03/09/91)
In article <583@coatimundi.cs.arizona.edu> gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman) writes: > >programs written in other languages. I wouldn't be surprised that >feature-for-feature, programs written in these languages are _more_ >robust, since feature-for-feature they are much smaller than programs >written in strongly typed languages. >-- Actually it is the other way round! There are many functional languages like Miranda* and LML which are as strongly typed as a language can be (but with type inference built-in) programs written in these languages are about an order-of-magnitude shorter than LISP (which is not functional and untyped). For example, P.Wadler of Programming Research Group, Oxford, UK, says in p53 of "Mathematical Logic and Programming Languages" Ed. C.A.R Hoare (1985) et al. that.... "...I have written a moderate-sized program in Lisp and Miranda. The program was about 40 pages in LISP and about 4 pages in Miranda, which speaks well for Miranda. The main reasons for brevity were the syntax of Miranda and the use of lazy evaluation" * Miranda is a trademark of Research Software Ltd., U.K. chandra. chandra@sparc45.tamu.edu