🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <TARJEIJ.91Jun18084649@ulrik.uio.no>, tarjeij@ulrik.uio.no (Tarjei Jensen) writes:
> I agree that Wirth is onto something. I don't dispute that oberon and modula2
> might be academically sound (you can do anything with them), but I think that
> he has forgotten the programmer. There seems to be very little thought about
> ergonomics (look and feel?) in his programming languages.
> 
> I think somebody needs to do approximately the same to oberon as UCSD and
> Borland did to Pascal. It is not accident that made Turbo Pascal outdo Modula
> 2.
> 

I'm getting tired of repeating this kind of stuff but here we go - this time
electronically:

1. "academically sound" - what does this mean?  So far as I am aware, neither
   language is based around any formalism.  Do you mean that it persues the
   principles of orthogonality and uniformity to an extent you find 
   inconvenient?  IMHO this is better than a language which treats every
   circumstance differently, such a notation may have "look" but won't have
   much in the way of "feel".  The only area in which I find M2 annoying from
   time to time is IO (I use the draft ISO std libraries rather than Wirth's
   PIM2) - and even there the solution(s) is simple:
       If there is an i/o format you reuse, code it as a routine and just
       call it; if it's a one-off you face it CANT be that much trouble to code!

       If you use the language sensibly, most reusable modules which provide
       an abstraction for which i/o is conceivable should provide i/o ops as
       exported routines.

       If you are *really* averse to the keyboard, consider a powerful editor
       which might take the strain for you - emacs springs to mind.  A 
       programming language is merely a notation with semantics attached - 
       nowhere does it say you have to type each keystroke.

2. Turbo Pascal vs. M2 - Well, "outdo" is an interesting word.  Does this mean
   that Turbo Pascal is an intrinsically faster or more complete language than
   M2?  Does it mean that it sells more? (great metric!)  Does it mean that
   TP is more portable than M2? (I program on PC and Unix platforms)  I think
   we are at last nearing the day when programmers and project managers are 
   actually going to take portability seriously - and they *aren't* going to
   be looking at ad-hoc single-platform extensions to languages for serious
   work.  Something that few seem to remember: Pascal was never designed to be
   a production language, and dressing it up won't take it's weaknesses away -
   it can only plaster up the cracks.

Health,
         Brent

+-Brent Summers, U of Waikato, NZ----------------------------------------+
|    "Laugh and the world ignores you.  Crying doesn't help either."     |
|      All opinions expressed are, of course, solely my own errors.      |
+------------------------------------------------------bcs@waikato.ac.nz-+