joshua@athertn.Atherton.COM (Flame Bait) (12/09/89)
I said: | C is simple. I understand how to write a compiler for it. Even though I | never will, the fact that I could is very important. It shows that the | language is understandable. cricket@hp-ses.SDE.HP.COM (Jiminy Cricket) replies: > Whoa. What? I think you'd better take some time to qualify your terms. To > say that because it's easy to write a compiler for a language makes it "easy > and straightforward" (for a programmer, anyway) is ludicrous. I was describing a rule of thumb, not causality. I'm sorry if it sounded that way. I was thinking of ALGOL type languages. Take these as examples: C, PASCAL, ADA, ALGOL-68, PL/I. Those languages that are easy to write a compiler for are easy to understand, and the reverse is also true. This rule tends to break down for non ALGOL type languages like LISP, PROLOG, SMALLTALK, and database languages. > To my mind, more abstraction brings with it both an "easier and [more] > straighforward" programming paradigm, but often at the cost of greater > compiler or interpreter complexity This is a good rule of thumb also, but it is not perfect either. > C, to many folks, is a nasty, grubby language. Surely we can find something more interesting to talk about then "my language is better than your language". Joshua Levy joshua@atherton.com home:(415)968-3718 {decwrl|sun|hpda}!athertn!joshua work:(408)734-9822
cricket@hp-ses.SDE.HP.COM (Jiminy Cricket) (12/09/89)
> To my mind, more abstraction brings with it both an "easier and [more] > straighforward" programming paradigm, but often at the cost of greater > compiler or interpreter complexity This is a good rule of thumb also, but it is not perfect either. Granted. You could always write a Byzantine compiler for a simple programming language, or (better) find a powerful, straightforward paradigm which happened to map directly to your CPU's instruction set. > C, to many folks, is a nasty, grubby language. Surely we can find something more interesting to talk about then "my language is better than your language". Just meant to underscore the idea the C is not, by many standards, an "easy and straightforward" language. Besides, I'm not the right person to talk about "my language is better than your language" here (unless you wanna defend something else). I program mostly in C. cricket