Article View: comp.lang.misc
Article #6755Re: Anyone want to design a language?
From: Freek Wiedijk
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1990 13:27
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1990 13:27
49 lines
1935 bytes
1935 bytes
In article <111355@ti-csl.csc.ti.com> gateley@m2.csc.ti.com (John Gateley)
writes:
>In article <8475@wpi.wpi.edu> jhallen@wpi.wpi.edu (Joseph H Allen) writes:
><(3) Block structure indicated by indentation level:
><...
>Now, just take it a little further: get rid of all infix notation,
>and let "blocks" be denoted by ( and ) and you get:
> ...
>and you have achieved a truly simple easy to use syntax where you
>dont have to worry about indentation (the editor does it for you),
>and programs which manipulate source code are much much easier to
>write.
Ehrm, no, I don't like this, because it is too verbose:
% cat foo.foo
while a!=b
int q
q=z*5
r+=foo(q)
% cat foo.sch
(begin
(while (!= a b)
(let ((q integer))
(= q (* z 5))
(+= r (foo q)))))
% wc -c foo.*
36 foo.foo
92 foo.sch
128 total
% bc
scale=2
92/36
2.55
Your solution has two-and-a-half times as many characters! In my
opinion the main advantage of C with respect to Pascal, is that C
enables you to write "int" where Pascal forces you to say "integer" :-)
Also, I don't like this amount of parentheses:
(+= r (foo q)))))
^^^^^
I know that you can let the editor handle it, but it still confuses me.
--
Freek "the Pistol Major" Wiedijk Path: uunet!fwi.uva.nl!freek
#P:+/ = #+/P?*+/ = i<<*+/P?*+/ = +/i<<**P?*+/ = +/(i<<*P?)*+/ = +/+/(i<<*P?)**
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!fwi.uva.nl!betty!freek From: freek@fwi.uva.nl (Freek Wiedijk) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Anyone want to design a language? Message-ID: <447@fwi.uva.nl> Date: 20 Feb 90 13:27:07 GMT References: <22569:05:10:24@stealth.acf.nyu.edu> <8475@wpi.wpi.edu> <111355@ti-csl.csc.ti.com> Sender: news@fwi.uva.nl Reply-To: freek@fwi.uva.nl (Freek Wiedijk) Organization: Faculteit Wiskunde & Informatica, Universiteit van Amsterdam Lines: 49