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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 5b1e799cdb,3ef3e78eacf6f938 X-Google-Attributes: gid5b1e799cdb,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!postnews.google.com!32g2000yqj.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: tm Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.modula3,comp.programming Subject: Re: Alternatives to C: ObjectPascal, Eiffel, Ada or Modula-3? Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:15:58 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <7020ad82-ed09-4c87-8f46-db23bf2fa866@32g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> References: <4fc0934e-197b-4a02-a006-4b64072897b2@h18g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.58.191.10 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1248423358 4873 127.0.0.1 (24 Jul 2009 08:15:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:15:58 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: 32g2000yqj.googlegroups.com; posting-host=195.58.191.10; posting-account=269_QwoAAADSifhJt6OVa6bEjZR2ZMUB User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.eiffel:405 comp.lang.ada:7307 comp.lang.modula3:94 comp.programming:12013 Date: 2009-07-24T01:15:58-07:00 List-Id: On 21 Jul., 16:12, Andrea Taverna wrote: > On 21 Lug, 14:25, Jon Harrop wrote: > > > I am very surprised at the list of languages you arrived at! FreePascal, > > Eiffel and Modula-3 are all essentially dead. > > I don't think so. FP seems to have a pretty alive community, GOBO > libraries seem to be actively updated. I can't confirm for M3, but its > supporters seem to be "alive and kicking". > Anyway, you're hitting me where it hurts. > Perhaps I'm just clueless, or childish, but I just can't stand this > situation. The more I learn, the more I feel that something went wrong > in the "language war" in the '80, and this leaves a bad tastes in my > mouth. It may be ridiculous since I was a child when that "war" took > place. > Nevertheless, I can't do anything but note that the languages above > got something right that modern mainstream languages haven't yet. Simplicity of languages and their implementation got lost somehow. Just because it is possible to write a parser (or compiler) for a language construct does not make it a good design decision. Many features get added to languages by a committee and thinking about parsing and implementing them starts much later (by different persons which did not have a chance to attend). Defining language constructs should not be seen as challenge for compiler/interpreter writers: "Hey lets see if the compiler writers are capable to implement this construct". Such thinking leads to unnecessary complex languages. Parsing with LL(1) and recursive descend parsing has advantages. It leads to simpler language constructs which are (when done right) also easier to read for humans. Seed7 allows the programmer to introduce new language constructs. Given my criticism towards committee designs this seems to be the wrong direction. But extending Seed7 is done in the scope of LL(1), recursive descend parsing and static typing. There are precise rules how the syntax of Seed7 can be extended. See: http://seed7.sourceforge.net/manual/syntax.htm When a programmer introduces a new construct to Seed7 he/she should implement it also. Greetings Thomas Mertes Seed7 Homepage: http://seed7.sourceforge.net Seed7 - The extensible programming language: User defined statements and operators, abstract data types, templates without special syntax, OO with interfaces and multiple dispatch, statically typed, interpreted or compiled, portable, runs under linux/unix/windows.