From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f891f,9d58048b8113c00f X-Google-Attributes: gidf891f,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,9d58048b8113c00f X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 10261c,2e71cf22768a124d X-Google-Attributes: gid10261c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,2e71cf22768a124d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robb Nebbe Subject: Re: next "big" language?? (disagree) Date: 1996/06/11 Message-ID: <31BD368F.64FB@iam.unibe.ch>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 159581409 references: <4p8nbt$3rj@btmpjg.god.bel.alcatel.be> <31B9A721.696@apci.net> <4phmsb$1dd@gaia.ns.utk.edu> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: Dept. of CS, University of Berne, Switzerland mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.pascal.misc x-mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (X11; I; SunOS 5.4 sun4m) Date: 1996-06-11T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: I believe it was Von Neuman who said: "If you don't know what you are talking about then there is no reason for precision." I suppose you could apply this to programming and say that if you don't know why your code works then there is no reason for precision. Things like types as well as pre- and postconditions are just extra work; aren't they? ;-| Matt Kennel wrote: > > O'Connor (oconnor@apci.net) wrote: > > : This is precisely why I enjoy Smalltalk so much. With very few > : syntactical rules to worry about, whether I'm writing code or reading > : someone elses, I can concentrate more on the intent of the code. "What > : needs to be accomplished" rather than "What language rules do I have to > : remember for this situation". > > And by doing so turns what would otherwise be superficial syntactic or > linguistic errors into programs with run-time bugs.