Re: Programming language vote - results

[randy@godin.on.ca (Randy MacDonald)]

In article <344BCED0.2D51@dynamite.com.au>, aebrain@dynamite.com.au wrote:
>Randy MacDonald wrote:
 
>> So, where's the code? Sounds like a challenge.

>No. Please. I'm begging.

Thus you consider your security code a failure?

>I've spent the better part of my professional
>life trying to get rid of the "fastest gun in the west" mentality of
>programming.

Given that most languages have built in viscosity, this is probably
a wise course.

>"There are two ways to write a program: Either make it so complex,
>there's nothing obviously wrong, or so simple that there's obviously
>nothing wrong."

The mathematical nature ("everything is either trivial or impossible") of
software is, regrettably, still in the future.  A middle ground still exists.

>Hence my preference for Ada. When listening to C weenies - er -
>enthusiasts talking about how their code is so tight, so efficient, and
>above all so impenetrable that it's obviously superior to another
>solution (in Ada so clear that "Any Fool could have written that"),

This is the claim COBOL made also.  I don't believe that one either.
My impression is that if an Ada program is clear, it probably isn't being
used for its intended purpose, i.e. an embedded program.

> I have to take a dried-frog pill and count to 10. In my younger and more
>foolish days, I was of a like mind. 

>Now I think that APL has a place,
>but only in small, one-use throw-aways, 

We, and those of our clients who have used our "one-use throw-away"
software for time now measureable in decades would probably differ on
this.  As one who has built these systems, the 

>and where terseness if vital (as
>in downloading complex programs over low-bandwidth data links).

If that were true, Java wouldn't exist.

>Probably other, similar areas as well. I'm glad it exists, as I'd hate to
> have to invent it!

>I once made the mistake of lending one of these C Hackers my old copy of
>"Structured Programming in APL" (a title that still leaves me gasping at
>the Oxymoron), and he's now a confirmed APL enthusiast.

The structure is in the data, and more recently in the code.  A nice property
of APL/J programs is that, where a structured look appears, for example, where
a series of lines have parallel structure, the similarity can be factored out,
leaving a series of individually unique lines.

--
|\/| Randy A MacDonald       | Bring me... BLUE PAGES!!!!
|\\| randy@godin.on.ca       | 
     BSc(Math) UNBF '83      | APL: If you can say it, it's done.
     Natural Born APL'er     | *** GLi Info: info@godin.on.ca ***
                             | Also http://www.godin.on.ca/randy
------------------------------------------------<-NTP>----{ gnat }-