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: 1108a1,c7b637f8b783b7c X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,c7b637f8b783b7c X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: fac41,c7b637f8b783b7c X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,c7b637f8b783b7c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,c7b637f8b783b7c X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public From: Jay Martin Subject: Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake) Date: 1997/08/29 Message-ID: <34072C68.DAFB500E@earthlink.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 268980192 References: <34023FC9.59E2B600@eiffel.com> <872652486.17137@dejanews.com> <3405A268.71A8C313@brightwood.com> <3406C150.3EE5EE0E@stratasys.com> Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.c++ Date: 1997-08-29T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Jon S Anthony wrote: > > In article <3406C150.3EE5EE0E@stratasys.com> Jeff Kotula writes: > > > I'm not saying that Eiffel advocates shouldn't tone down their > > rhetoric, but the rest of us should probably open up a bit. We are, > > after all, supposed to be engineers/scientists and remain free of > > bias :) > Sounds good to me. I note here that I really don't have a love affair > with any programming language. Put another way, I feel they all suck > one way or another and that they need to be evaluated for each context > to see which one sucks the least for that context of use. Seems reasonable. My "roots" are in "programming in the large with "non-brilliant programmers" so I prefer "anal", "hand holding", "strongly typed" and simple languages. Though I would love to see my "beliefs" challenged by say stellar improvements in productivity studies using more "loose" languages on projects consisting of say a few million lines of code and heh "room temperature" programming IQs. > I also > favor (heresy of heresies) multi-language development in those (many, > imo) cases where it makes sense. Multi-language development projects can be a pain and usually more languages means even more pain. > The thing that is annoying about > these ultra-fanatical Eiffel people, isn't Eiffel - it _is_ a language > that sucks less than many - it's that they basically have bought into > their own rhetoric that Eiffel is the absolute paragon of perfection > in PLs. I have never used Eiffel but it looks to be a very good language that has few compromises on "quality". > IMO, there are many perspectives from which it is not even > remotely close to this. Take expressivity for example. Compared to > CL/CLOS, Eiffel is about as expressive as the original BASIC. It seems to me if you are doing "prototypes", short lived programs and small programs, etc, then expressivity is a desirable feature. As you go into "a programming the large" situation, then "expressivity" has its costs. And it may just be my "roots" but "large" situations seem much more challenging and critical than "small programs" which can easily be dumped and rewritten. I guess I find "unscalable" programming in the small languages and programming philosophies less compelling than "large" ones. Jay