🚀 go-pugleaf

Looks like I rubbed a scheme zealot the wrong way.  :-)

rockwell@socrates.umd.edu (Raul Rockwell) writes:
> "Write only" languages tend to be ones you don't understand.
>
> Programmers who can't debug programs don't earn high marks in
> anybody's book (except, perhaps, their own).

Strong words, but little insight.  Of course you have to understand a
language to debug it.  No kidding.  But given equal proficiency, could a
programmer debug a similar algorithm implemented in Algol or Forth faster?
How about C vs. Assembly?  Scheme vs. teco?

It seems clear that some languages open code written in them to inspection
and understanding.  Other languages seem to swallow code in a black goo of
obfuscation.

It's possible that the Magical Power of Lisp-like-languages outweighs the
disadvantages of folding every syntactic construct onto the pattern f(a b c).
I'm suspicious, though.  The Scheme crowds' arguments sound an awful lot
like all of the excuses I heard for using Forth.

> [And an inability to
> debug in an interactive environment suggests a severe lack of
> discipline.]

This statement inspired such wonder in me, I couldn't choose between
my responses:

	1)  My interactive enviroment is Unix and vi, does that count?  :-)

	2)  Good thing all of those nasty undisciplined Fortran programmers
	    debugging their card stacks between batch runs are gone.

	3)  What on earth does discipline have to do with using debuggers
	    and code viewing tools?

> Raul <rockwell@socrates.umd.edu>

Rich
--
skrenta@amix.commodore.com