🚀 go-pugleaf

>The Modula-n programming languages are pretty good. However, they suffer 
>in their Pascal heritage. The C-type syntax is much more concise and 
>consistent (no flames please). What the world needs is a language that 
>offers both simplicity and elegance, along with the ability to 
>self-organize and self-document (code, that is). Is it time for a D 
>programming language?

From this paragraph I will guess that you are imputing Modula-3's capabilities
by remembering Modula-2's and then fudging a bit.  If you look at Modula-3's
type system you will find it far more consistent than C's.  As for conciseness,
well, "typedef int (*foo)(int, int)" may be concise but it's not what I'd call
a model of clarity.  Modula-3's chief objective -- which it achieves nicely --
is that code written in it (including arbitrarily complex data structures)
tends to look like what it does/is.  (Not to mention that Modula-3 code that
compiles will tend to work -- whereas C will compile many kinds of line noise
and generate pseudorandom object code for you.)

The operative question is not yet "which language is better" but rather, "what
attributes make a language better or worse than another?"  To professional
programmers who work on huge projects as part of distributed teams full of non-
wizards, a language that looks like what it does, has very strict compile-time
rules, has some run-time rules and has explicit module interdependencies, will
seem like a better language than one which gives programmers a lot of power and
flexibility.  Garage band programmers will tend to prefer the power and flex.

The error which underlies the very existence of this debate is that there is
some kind of perfect Platonic form of the computer language, which some real
languages reflect more perfectly than others.  Plato was brilliant for his time
but reality is not expressable in terms of arbitrary visions of perfection, and
furthermore, one programmer's ideal is often another's hell.
-- 
Paul Vixie
La Honda, CA			"Illegitimi non carborundum."
<paul@vix.com>
pacbell!vixie!paul		(dont let the bastards grind you down)