🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3agcr4$ce2@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> romanov@alex.nacto.lkg.dec.com (Aleksey Y. Romanov) writes:


   From: romanov@alex.nacto.lkg.dec.com (Aleksey Y. Romanov)
   Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,gnu.misc.discuss
   Date: 17 Nov 1994 20:01:40 GMT
   Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - Littleton, MA
   Lines: 59
   NNTP-Posting-Host: alex.nacto.lkg.dec.com
   Xref: thecourier.cims.nyu.edu comp.lang.misc:5455 gnu.misc.discuss:9069

	...

   Following is strictly IMHO. The principal requirement to scripting
   language is that it has to be usable by unqualified and semi-qualified
   people: one cannot expect lisp-guru to build application from pieces
   at customer place, I would rather expect somebody with background
   in accounting and some light programming experience to do this
   kind of job.

The same kind of people you are mentioning have learned and wrote
zillions of lines of junky code in so-called macro languages like 123
and Excel. They "get the job done" but it does not mean that they
would have written the same zillions of lines of junk code in a
different language.

Hence, junk code will still be written by people who need to "get the
job done" and who will learn whatever they need to learn to get where
they want.

Giving them a language that doesn't affect my stomach is a simple
twist of the way things could be :)

   I meant simple procedural language. I think that following requirements
   are important:

     - it has to be exisiting language

Lisp has existed since Fortran and COBOL. :)

     - it has to be simple enough non CS/Math/Physcs majors to use

Simplicity has nothing to do with the actual use. Spreadsheet Macro
Languages are seemingly simple. In reality they are messy.

     - it has to be interpretive

Schem and Lisp come with interpreters AND compilers.

   So, something a la Visual Basic seems quite appropriate for this
   task.

Or a la Scheme as proposed :)


Happy Lisping
--
Marco Antoniotti - Resistente Umano
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...e` la semplicita` che e` difficile a farsi.
...it is simplicity that is difficult to make.
				Bertholdt Brecht