Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support

"Derek M. Jones" <derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk>
Tue, 10 Apr 2018 16:56:24 +0100

          From comp.compilers

Related articles
[2 earlier articles]
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support martin@gkc.org.uk (Martin Ward) (2018-04-06)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk (Derek M. Jones) (2018-04-08)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support gneuner2@comcast.net (George Neuner) (2018-04-09)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (2018-04-10)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk (Derek M. Jones) (2018-04-10)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support martin@gkc.org.uk (Martin Ward) (2018-04-10)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk (Derek M. Jones) (2018-04-10)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (2018-04-10)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support genew@telus.net (Gene Wirchenko) (2018-04-10)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support gneuner2@comcast.net (George Neuner) (2018-04-10)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support 157-073-9834@kylheku.com (Kaz Kylheku) (2018-04-10)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support 157-073-9834@kylheku.com (Kaz Kylheku) (2018-04-10)
Re: language design after Algol 60, was Add nested-function support derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk (Derek M. Jones) (2018-04-10)
[11 later articles]
| List of all articles for this month |

From: "Derek M. Jones" <derek@_NOSPAM_knosof.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 16:56:24 +0100
Organization: virginmedia.com
References: 18-04-029
Injection-Info: gal.iecc.com; posting-host="news.iecc.com:2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970"; logging-data="89747"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@iecc.com"
Keywords: history, design
Posted-Date: 10 Apr 2018 14:07:07 EDT
Content-Language: en-US

Martin,


> On 08/04/18 14:21, Derek M. Jones wrote:
>>> Modern popular languages are neither powerful nor easy to learn.
>>
>> What evidence do you have for this?
>
> The C standard is over 700 pages: not exactly an easy read.


By evidence I mean an evaluation of multiple languages.


Here are some languages from 1957. Were they powerful and easy
to learn?


http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2017/05/21/evidence-for-28-possible-compilers-in-1957/


....> memorise and avoid using if they want to write conformant and
> compatible code.


I thought we were talking about powerful and easy to learn?


> On the other hand, the Revised^4 Report on the Algorithmic Language
> Scheme ("Dedicated to the Memory of ALGOL 60") is only a 55 page manual
> but it includes the full syntax and semantics of the language.


My question was about powerful and easy to learn. Not about number
of pages in the language specification.
[In my experience, any language that is semantically similar to
languages you already know is easy to learn. For example, I find
python comprehensions obvious and easy to use because they're just a
syntax for a function mapping. I know other python programmers who
find them baffling and always write "for" loops instead, presumably
because the languages they'd used didn't do much function mapping.
-John]



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