🚀 go-pugleaf

In comp.sys.transputer <1446@eagle.ukc.ac.uk>
Warren Day <wgd@ukc.ac.uk> writes:

> The occam syntax has always been a elegant tool for expressing parallelism
> at all levels of a system, both high and low.  Occam is also the only
> language I know of that possesses full compilation checking.  It is a very
> simple language and is thus a very simple language to program in and reason
> about quickly.      ... 

Elegant tool for expressing parallelism? definitely.
Elegant tool for expressing everything else? definitely not.

The Occam syntax leaves a lot to be desired:

(1) It is not free formatted; I thought the days of counting columns were over.

(2) I fail to see the advantage of having no operator hierarchy or default 
    data types:

    why write this:

       (1.0 (REAL32) + (2.0 (REAL32) * 3.0 (REAL32))) - 4.0 (REAL32)

    and count brackets when all I'm trying to do is:

       1.0 + 2.0*3.0 - 4.0

(3) Is it really elegant to write this:

     IF
       var1 < 1.0 (REAL32)
         SEQ
           var1 := 2.0 (REAL32)
           var2 := 2.0 (REAL32)
       TRUE
         SKIP

     instead of  If( var1 < 1.0 ) Seq{var1 = 2.0;var2 = 2.0;}

Don't get me wrong; Occam has many innovative features; it just seems to
me that a more sophisticated parser for the syntax would have gone a long
way towards making it more popular -- and a long way towards keeping
irritable people like me quieter ;-) .
     
> On a similar note the TDS, like every new and elegant code managing tool;
> once one is fluent with it's workings, has its own continually growing set
> of advantages over traditional editors.
  
I think I'll complain about this one too :-)

TDS is not a bad tool; it does have a reasonably good editor and file management
system. My objection is why?. Who needs a new editor?; I mean just how many 
ways can you do a cut-and-paste operation!. Personally I like to keep the
option of using any editor I wish (this may ore may not be origami) and I 
like to have more direct control over the files on my disk. As soon as the 
toolset came out, I gladly converted away from the TDS.

Jacob Hirbawi
JcbHrb@CERF.net